Summer in Sweden
by Sagaoosh
Summary: The Malfoys has some unexpected ancestors that they visit once in a while, and this summer Draco finds someone staying there as well, someone that has been missing for months. Short chapters, slow development, M for later chapters. FINALLY COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

_This story is not beta'd and may have a few typos, but I am currently fixing them as I find them. Please feel free to point them out as well._

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><p>Draco had never liked visiting his great ancestors mansion in south, wooded Sweden. It was not that he didn't like Sweden, because he did. Neither did he dislike the mansion, because it was a beautiful house with big belonging grounds. He just didn't like his ancestor. Carl Andersson. You would think that an ancestor would be dead by now, but this one wasn't. Carl Andersson was one of few vampire households left in the world, and Draco was directly related to him. His family had always been harsh on not marrying muggles, but it had sometimes resulted in catastrophic relations like the one between Carl, the vampire, and Estelle, the witch. Vampires had a reputation not be able to get kids, but apparently Estelle had found away around it. As a plus, neither of the descendants could become one.<p>

Every other summer Draco and his parents would visit Carl and the rest of the vampires that lived at the mansion (Estelle had died a long time ago), and Draco had never liked it. Even if the vampires let him be, he never felt comfortable around them. The house was old and beautiful but sullied by the vampires and their actions. He had learned that he could wander around it in without ever bumping into anyone, which was both creepy and comforting. It had a big library with the oldest books he'd ever seen and it was there he often ended up. The mansion held no house elves, because they didn't serve vampires, and only when Draco and his family brought theirs with them, the house cleaned up a little and some light could be seen at the end of the summer.

Their arrival started late at night, Carl himself greeting them and showing them to their regular rooms, conversing politely with his parents. Carl held an immense proud in having children and descendants, because he was the only vampire with them, and that was the reason they visited every other summer. It wasn't like they all disliked it, if you forgot about all the creatures living there with them; it was actually quite the nice and calm vacation. They night after their arrival, Carl always held a big dinner, and this was often the only time where they were able to see and understand just how many creatures they shared roof with. The mood of the dinner was always polite yet tense, and Draco learned to recognize the vampires that had stayed for long, and those who were new. After that, the summer went on, and they only bumped into to Carl once in a while, late at night or early in the mornings.

It had been 5 years since the final battle of the Second War with the Dark Lord. Draco and his parents had gotten off quite well, his father being the only one being punished for a short while. Draco supposed they owed it a lot to Harry Potter, who had several interviews after the battle, explaining almost everything there could be asked about it, therefore including Draco's and his parents actions, how his mother had hidden Potters survival for the Dark Lord, and how they had stayed at Hogwarts after the battle was over. Potter now had a big position at the Ministry, a job it would have taken years to achieve for anybody else. The Weasel had somehow succeeded as a professional Quidditch-player, the same as his younger sister (and greater talented, if Draco would be honest). What had happened to Granger, though… no one really knew. She had finished her tests at Hogwarts after the war, and then disappeared out in the world on "research-trips". The latest heard of her was a short letter from her while in Russia, over 8 months ago. She was now declared missing and the whole wizarding world had been looking quite vividly after her for a while, until the tracks disappeared somewhere in Poland.

And yet, there she was, sitting almost in front of him, in the other end of the room, staring at him almost as shocked as he did. He closed his mouth quickly and became nervous.

"Father", he said, without taking his eye of Granger, who was now closing and opening her mouth, her posture tensing.

"Father", he said again, with a more pressuring tone, and his father broke out of his conversation on his left.

"What?" the older Malfoy shot back and Draco nodded his head, directing his father's gaze to where he was staring.

"Isn't that Granger?"

He glanced up at his father, uncertain of how he would react. When he didn't show any sign of recognition, Draco looked back at Granger.

"Perhaps", his father finally said. On the other side, Granger suddenly looked furious.

"She looks angry. I suppose she hasn't forgiven us like the rest of the world", his father continued with an entertained snarl. Draco frowned.

"She must be a…"

"Vampire. Yes. Explains her anger."

Draco looked back at Granger and thought of everything he knew about vampires. They had of course learnt about them at Hogwarts, in DADA, and the facts known about vampires were actually quite true. They fed on blood. They died of drinking dead blood, on the other hand. They were one of the most emotional creatures on earth, which was probably explaining why Granger was looking so angry. They were also one of the most sexual, their appearances and senses all focusing around mating, which was strange in a way since they couldn't have kids. Most people claimed the reason to their sexuality was that it was used to lure humans in with their seductiveness, even though lately vampires had started feeding more on animals than humans, in the phase also increasing in numbers.

"You know she's announced missing in the wizarding world?" Draco said after a while. His father refocused on his food.

"Perhaps."

"Shouldn't we tell them, then?" Draco insisted, even though he knew when his father wanted to drop a subject. It took a while before he got an answer.

"We'll tell them when we've gotten home. We're on a vacation, remember?"

Draco frowned, irritated by the tone in his fathers voice, knowing what it meant, too.

"Yes, father."

The dinner continued as usual, Draco only daring a glance at Granger once in a while. She seemed to relax after a while, not giving him deadly stares or ignoring her food. (Draco had always wondered what they ate at this dinner, but he never dared ask.) He felt a tad bit nervous about spending the rest of the summer sharing a house with Granger. Perhaps she would do what the rest did, and stay out of the way. It would be for the best if she did, but he had a strong feeling she wouldn't.


	2. Chapter 2

_Their characters may seem a bit OOC, but it's been 5 years and I imagine that at least Draco has grown up a bit. And he has the right to feel uncomfortable amongt vampires as well._

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><p>It didn't take long until he met her. Only minutes after the sun had set the following day, she appeared in the drawing room in which he was sitting by a table, reading a book he had collected from the library earlier. He didn't hear her arriving, and he flinched a little when he suddenly noticed her in the doorway. She stared at him with a frown.<p>

"It's really you", she said so silent he almost didn't hear it.

"Granger", he said in formal greeting, ignoring her words and looking back down in his book.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm related to Carl", he answered. He could only imagine her reaction to his answer; frowning, gaping, uncertain of how to answer.

"You're related to Carl", she repeated after a short while, as if she wasn't sure of what she'd just heard. There was silence for a few moments.

"That doesn't really explain why you're here", she then continued, in a realising tone. Draco sighed and flipped page.

"Every other summer we go on vacation here."  
>"Vacation? The house is drowning of vampires."<p>

He stopped himself from glancing up at her again, instead directing his gaze out the window, where it now had darkened.

"Carl is very proud of his family, and we are honoured to visit. It's a nice house, and the vampires have a tendency to stay out of our way", he answered, laying extra weight on the last words.

"But you're human", she stated confusingly. "Why would we stay out of your way?"

He suddenly turned and met her gaze.

"You tell me."

She frowned.

"I can't. I'm new. I… haven't fed yet."

He raised his eyebrows, and she looked irritated.

"But you're…"

"I haven't fed on humans. I don't know what it's like. Some of the others have told me what it's like once you had. That you can… smell us, them, differently, depending on how… tasty they are", she said, stumbling on her words, clearly uncomfortable. He tilted his head, resting it in his hand. She looked different, somehow, but he couldn't place how.

"Well, even if you had, I still wouldn't smell at all. I can't die of a vampire bite and I can't be turned, so I'm not… interesting, for you."

She looked thunderstruck.

"Really?"

He nodded, not sure of why he was even telling her anything at all. He blamed it on his inconvenience, rather having her talking over there, then doing something else even closer.

"How?"

He looked back down in his book.

"You've heard of Carl's mate, Estelle?"

"She was a witch."

He nodded.

"Exactly."

The answer apparently wasn't enough to satisfy her curiosity.

"But if that was all it took, to be a witch, anyone would be able to date a vampire. There would be tons more of them. An antidote could be made to make humans completely immune against their poison. They could've lived as humans. But they don't. So that can't be it."

He shook his shoulders.

"You tell me."

There was suddenly a big sigh.

"I wish I could. But I'm stuck in this utterly boring house."

He looked up at her frowning.

"Boring house? How long have you lived here?"

"Two months."

"You're not aware that there's a big library and two laboratories filled with the oldest things I've ever come across?"

She looked thunderstruck once again.

"What?" she managed to mouth.

He held up his book.

"Where did you think I got this from?"

She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, her words falling of her tongue.

"You could've… brought it... with you."

He watched her for a while, as she seemed to handle the things he had just told her. Then she suddenly moved and stepped towards him, into the proper light of the room, stopping just in front of him.

"Please show me", she said as he stared up at her, suddenly realising why she had looked so different. Her skin was paler, smoother, her eyes sharp and not as dark brown anymore, her hair flowing in perfect curls down her shoulders and back, her lips pinker, her teeth evener, her eyebrows sharper. The only thing that didn't look good were the clothes she wore, hanging on her as if she had lost weight and not washed them in a while. He looked back in her face, her eyes pleading. He felt his stomach twist in a way he had never felt before, and he frowned yet again.

"Please, Malf…"

"Okay, okay, I'll show you", he said irritated, and stood up, glaring at her as he saw her face lit up. He went for the door, her following him, and took left in the hallway.


	3. Chapter 3

"Haven't you explored the house at all? Not even been showed around?"

"No", he heard her answering from behind. "I haven't dared ask anyone, and I don't want to open the wrong doors. Most of them… freak me out a little."

He glanced back at her.

"You're one of them."

"That doesn't mean they like me", she replied in a low voice.

"Someone must've made you", he continued in his usual voice. Hermione sped up to walk more beside him, and watched the doors they passed.

"I don't know who."

"You don't remember?"

She nodded.

"I had a black out. I think… I think someone obliviated me", she continued in the same low voice, now with a concerned tone.

Draco didn't know how to answer, so he didn't.

"Here's the library", he said after a while, as they stopped in frown of a huge, untitled door in the end of a hallway. She opened it with an expectantly expression and he couldn't help but laugh inwardly. This girl that he had disliked for so long, and who was now a vampire, still showed childish joy over things like going to a library. She gasped as the door opened.

"It's huge", she whispered.

"And old", he added and followed her gaze.

"Isn't there ever anyone here? I would be here all I could!"

"I think they have", he replied. He could see her frown.

"But it must take a life-time to read all of these… oh, right."

She seemed disturbed for a while, but then something seemed to dawn up on her.

"I could read all the books in the world", she said. Draco chuckled and she suddenly looked at him.

"What?"

"You're practically immortal, and your first thought is that you can read all the books in the world? How boring."

She frowned and looked back to the books, approaching the closest aisle.

"Wouldn't you? Isn't that what you're doing? Reading this library?"

His answer got stuck when he realised she was a bit right.

"So how far have you gotten?" she continued, disappearing behind the second aisle.

"To the fourth aisle", he muttered after a while. He saw her emerge from the second aisle and go over to the fourth.

"Quite the bit", she said with an impressed look. He stood still while she ran between the aisles.

"You know you're missing, right?" he said, almost repeating the words he'd said to his father the night before. She suddenly stopped with her back to him.

"No one has heard from you in eight months", he continued, crossing his arms.

"No one knows where you are. _What_ you are."

She turned to face him, her face suddenly blank from emotion.

"Are you going to tell them?"

If he weren't already frowning he'd frown again. He thought of what his father had said.

"No. Not until we get home again."

She suddenly looked relieved.


	4. Chapter 4

After a while, Draco left the library. It took two days before she showed up again, this time in a hallway when he was walking to his room after supper. He raised an eyebrow at her when he saw her.

"You're up early. The sun has barely set", he said, but she waved her hand as if to shut him up.

"You didn't show me the laboratories", she said, watching him eagerly. "Why are you never spending time with your parents, by the way?" she then added.

"I'm not a kid anymore, Granger. They're not the funniest people to hang out with, anyway", he answered before suddenly turning and walking the same way he came. It took a few seconds for her to follow, but even less to catch up, and he felt a shiver going down his spine as she suddenly appeared only a step behind him.

"But they're the only others here", she persisted.

"They often are. That doesn't mean I don't have any alternatives."

They were silent for a while.

"I would have liked my parents to be around, though", she mumbled. He frowned.

"Where are your parents?" he asked.

"In Australia."

He halted in his steps and stared at her. He couldn't remember if she'd always made so little sense.

"Australia? What are they doing there?"

She suddenly looked both sad and ashamed.

"I obliviated them during the war and made them move away. I found them, four years ago… they had gotten a baby."

He frowned.

"You didn't give them their memory back?"

She shook her head.

"I wasn't ready. And now… maybe it was for the best."

He stared into the wall beside them, processing the things she had just said. She didn't have any parents. She had willingly given them up, for the sake of the war. For the wizarding world's sake. He wondered if she still was considered muggle-born, if she didn't have any parents. Then he frowned. She was a vampire.

"You're not a witch anymore."

She suddenly chuckled.

"That's the thing. That's why the others don't like me."

He looked back at her when her words didn't make sense. She lifted a hand and held her palm openly up, when suddenly a blue fire emerged from it, lightning them up a little. He took a step back.

"You're still…"

"Yes. Somehow. I've always learned that when a witch or wizard become a vampire, their powers go away because the body dies. But… there seems to be some kind of exception."

"Apparently."

She cleared her throat and closed her palm, killing the blue flames.

"So, are you going to show me the laboratories or what?"

He showed her to the laboratories that lay connected to each other through a pair of stairs, not very far from the library.

"I think you better talk to Carl before you use the things in here though. Maybe he'll even show you how some of them works, because I have no clue."

She nodded as she moved around the rooms, touching things with light fingers, admiring all the old instruments that stood around. The desks were covered in books and sheets of notes. She then approached him again, and he became uncomfortable. He knew she was as dangerous up close as a few steps away, and that he really wasn't attracting to her, but she'd still be able to tear him up quite the bit if she wanted. She suddenly smiled as if she knew what he was thinking.

"Thank you", she said and he got unsure if she really did know what he was thinking or simply happy that he had shown her the rooms.

"You're welcome."


	5. Chapter 5

It took more than a week before they met again, and this time it was Draco who looked her up. Carl had come visited his parents the night before, and his mother and him had gotten in a conversation about Estelle.

"Such a sad story, she was", his mother had said. Carl had nodded in agreement.

"She was quite the woman. But neither vampires nor wizards were as understanding back then as they are today. She was one of a kind. Although, I have a young girl staying with us that is just the same as my dear Estelle. The others are spooked of her, not only because she looks a lot like Estelle, but because she is both vampire and witch, just like Estelle. That's why I took her in. She's quite new. I haven't talked to her much yet, but I can't help but be quite fond of her."

Draco had whitened when he understood who it was.

"Really? How thrilling! What is her story?" his mother had answered. Carl had shook his head and looked both confused and entertained.

"She hasn't told us much. She seems to have forgotten a few months of the last year. Woke up alone and a vampire in northern Germany, where one of my friends found her. I fear there is a bigger story behind it than it seems."

"What's her name?"

"Hermione Granger", Carl had answered and both his parents had choked on their drinks. The old vampire had frowned at them.

"Do you know of her?"

Lucius had glanced at Draco before answering.

"We… recognized her at the dinner. She was in the same year as Draco at Hogwarts. She's one of the 'Golden Trio'… heroes of the Second War with the Dark Lord", Lucius explained and Draco was surprised of his father's thorough answer. Carl had looked thoughtful for a while.

"Ah, I heard of that war. That Lord even contacted me about joining his side", Carl laughed a little before continuing, "Hero, you say? She said she'd been a witch, but not a powerful one. She's quite young."

There was silence for a few seconds.

"She's…" Draco cleared his throat. "She's called the brightest witch of her age."

Carl raised his eyebrows again, a smile lingering on his face.

"Really? How interesting."

He seemed to think for a while.

"Well, if you want to spend time with her, you're welcome to do so. She doesn't seem to get along well with the others here. She might need someone from her past to be able to move on forward."

Draco frowned a little. It was occasions like these that Carl seemed like a replica of Dumbledore. It was one of the reasons Draco didn't really like him.

"Well, I better get going", Carl then said and rose up. "It's getting late. I should let you sleep."

They all rose up as he went for the door.

"You all have a good night", he said.

"You too, sir", Lucius said.

Carl chuckled.

"We'll see."

And with that he left.

The following morning his father had brought it up again by the breakfast table.

"Maybe you should talk to that Granger-girl", he had said while pouring himself a coffee. His mother had nodded in agreement. Draco stared at them.

"Yes. She seems to be special. It wouldn't hurt to do as Carl says, and help her a little", Narcissa said with a teasing smile.

"Are you kidding me? What about all the things you've said about her before?"

His father cleared his throat and looked daringly at his son.

"That was before."

"That is ridiculous."

"Draco", his mother warned him. "Just talk to her."

"I'm not your kid anymore, I'm 23! You seriously can't tell me what to do anymore", but he could the game was already lost.

"But you're our _son._ And you're Carl's grand, grand, grand… grandson. If he asks you to do it, just _do it._"


	6. Chapter 6

He had been irritated for the rest of the day. Not only because his parents forced him to find her by night and talk to her, or the fact that he would have done it anyway. He didn't even know why, but he felt like he just couldn't know the things he knew without telling her. It was… unfair.

He shook his head as he headed to the library when night had fallen. The summer days in Sweden were long and the clock was just after 12 o'clock. He didn't like Hermione. He never had. She was annoying, she was nerdy, and irritating. He didn't like how he for the first time… felt some kind of _need _to see her. He hadn't seen her in years, nor missed her for a second.

He found comfort in blaming his thoughts on her being a vampire, a vampire-witch even, and whatever powers she now possessed. She was a monster of sex after all. He shuddered at the thought. It was disturbing.

"Malfoy."

He stopped in his steps; he'd been too busy in his thoughts he hadn't even noticed he'd passed her sitting in a window frame.

"Granger", he answered, still collecting his thoughts.

"What are you doing up so late?" she asked, closing the book she had in her knee.

"I was looking for you", he said a bit unwillingly. She chuckled as if she had hard to believe his words.

"Why?"

He hesitated for moment.

"Carl visited us last night. My mother and he talked a lot about his wife, Estelle."

She nodded, her curls dancing in the moonlight that poured through the window.

"Yes?"

"She was a vampire-witch."

Hermione gaped at him as she swallowed his words. She then suddenly stood up, and disappeared before Draco had any chance to continue. He stood still for a while, watching the spot where she had been just moments ago, and snorted. No wonder he didn't like her. He approached the window and picked up the book she had read. It was about potions. He opened it and saw that it was only full with potions recipes and wondered how fun it could be to read.

He straightened up and started heading back to his room, just as irritated as he'd been all day, if not more.

"Malfoy!" he heard as he'd passed through half of the hallway, and suddenly felt something cold against his wrist. He stopped in his steps and saw that it was Granger that had grabbed hold of him. She looked embarrassed.

"Sorry I ran off. I'm not used to that yet. I was in the laborato…"  
>"You're freezing", he interrupted and she quickly let go of him.<p>

"Sorry."

There was a moment of silence.

"The notes, in the laboratories… They're all Estelle's."

"So?" he said in irritation. He could see her frown in confusion.

"Don't you want to read them? She's your ancestor."

He looked at her with a cold gaze, daring her to act too friendly towards him but more importantly, giving himself time to decide if he was interested or not.

"I'm not doing this because I like you, Granger, because I don't. I'd rather just go to bed."

Her pupils suddenly dilated and she shook her face either to get rid of it or confirm his words.

"I know. I know. But… she's your ancestor. And you can read faster when you're two."

"Have you asked Carl?"

She shook her head and sighed.

"I'll ask him tonight. We'll read it tomorrow."

He chuckled and raised his eyebrows.

"How do you know he'll say yes?"

"I don't."

"But you said…"  
>"I know what I said. The laboratories. Tomorrow. After sunset."<p>

And just like that, she was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

Neither of his parents brought the subject up the next day, which Draco was quite thankful for. He had enough troubles, he thought, and spent the rest of the day in his room, relaxing and reading. When evening finally came, the sun seemed to set even more slowly than usual and Draco forced himself to wait until it was completely dark before heading off to the laboratories.

She stood waiting in front of the main laboratory when he arrived.

"He said yes", was all she said as they opened the doors.

"What would you have done if he said no?" he asked.

"Read them anyway", she answered as if they were talking about the weather. He snorted.

"What? If I'm like her, I if anyone should read it", she continued with a shook of her shoulders. "Besides, if they don't want anyone to read it, they shouldn't leave it lying like this."

"I suppose. One would just think that you cared about rules set by one of the oldest vampires around, though."

She chuckled.

"As if you never broke Professor Dumbledore's rules", she answered back.

"As if you did."

She laughed a little and gave him a daring look.

"I stole from Professor Snape's personal supply in our second year."

"You _what?"_ he said and stopped in his steps. Hermione ignored him and started flipping through some of the books.

"Quite the funny story, if you think of it. I made poly juice potion. Harry and Ron disguised themselves as Crabbe and Goyle during the winter holiday to find out who opened the Chamber. We thought it was you."

Draco didn't know what to say.

"You…"

"Turned out it wasn't. Quite many months of work all for nothing. The potion didn't even work for me."

"Wait a minute. You were Crabbe and Goyle? What happened to them? What did you do?"

She sighed and looked up, and when she answered she did it with a reporting tone.

"We took hair from Crabbe and Goyle, gave them cupcakes that made them sleep, Harry and Ron went to find you, followed you into the Slytherin Common Room… you talked about the Chamber… they ran out… end of story. Crabbe and Goyle woke up in a cabinet."

It was Draco's turn to be thunderstruck.

"Such idiots", he muttered after a while. Hermione chuckled slightly.

"Indeed. It was a clever choice of friends though, you always looked really smart next to them."

"Yeah, well, even an idiot would."

"That's what I said."

He glared at her.

"I always got the best grades, thank you."

She smiled slightly.

"I know."


	8. Chapter 8

"Well, these are all in a mess, but they're all dated so if we collect them and sort them it'll be a lot easier reading… I can't believe these are still around. They're so old", she said, holding up a handful of papers.

Draco approached the other desk in the room and sat down on the chair after cleaning it from paper and dust. He then proceeded in putting all the books and papers in order after date, also becoming slightly impressed by how old they were… Even if Estelle had died, she seemed to have lived longer than humans. The notes on his desk reached from 1690 to 1840 and he suddenly found himself wondering how old Carl was.

"When they talked, Carl and mother, it seemed as if she was killed in some way. Carl said… that vampires and humans weren't as understanding back then as they are today."

Hermione looked up at him.

"Makes sense. The relation between vampires and wizards has always been tense, even more between vampires and muggles, just as the relation between wizards and muggles. I'm guessing she wasn't like… accepted by any of the kinds. Like a hybrid. I've never heard of it before. Except maybe werewolves, but… when you're a werewolf you're either wizard or muggle or wolf… You're not both on the _same time_", she said with a sigh.

"What about Hagrid?"

Her face suddenly shot up.

"You're right. He's part wizard… part giant", she muttered and frowned. "But he only has the size of a giant… It would be like a wizard having vampire teeth but not using them."

She was lost in thought for a while.

"The hardest bit is that vampire's doesn't get kids. There can be humans with… Veela features, Giant features… because they're _children_ of one…"

He frowned.

"Maybe we should focus on the notes instead."

She nodded absently.

"Yeah, we should", she answered and refocusing on all the papers in front of her.

Two hours later they were still sorting papers and Draco was getting bored and tired. There wasn't very much left, but he found himself losing focus and forgetting which century went where.

"You can go to bed if you want", Hermione suddenly said. He looked up at her, but she was still sorting paper.

"I didn't know it'd be such a mess. You can go, and we'll read it tomorrow. I can do the rest."

"The sun rises soon", he answered and she nodded.

"I know. Go to bed."

He rose and left.

She looked after him as he left. He was strange to be around. She had realised earlier why, and had a hard time not thinking of it since then. He didn't have a scent. Her senses were all so much stronger now and even the other vampires had their own scents. She understood that he didn't have a scent because he was a descendant to Carl, but it was so… weird. Even as a human she'd cherish people's scents. Her fathers. Her mothers. Rons. Harrys. Ginnys. Crookshanks. Professor McGonagalls. Professor Dumbledores. Professor Snapes. Hagrids. Fangs.

The scent of parchment, forest, ocean, rain, food, beer, sweat… sex.

She suddenly blushed hard and covered her cheeks with her hands. She knew vampires were sexual creatures, but she wasn't comfortable thinking so much of sex that she was. Everything that could be misinterpreted… A single movement of another vampire, sending a flood of its scent up her nostrils, excited her. It was… unnerving. Everyone smelled amazing and it was awful sleeping alone. She knew almost every vampire in the house had a mate to sleep with and she understood why.

It was like they were made to be two. Made to share the eternity with someone.

It wasn't as bad spending time with Malfoy as it was with the others, because he didn't smell. She wondered what he'd smell like if he did.


	9. Chapter 9

She sat as long as she dared sorting the books and papers, and almost finished. She decided to try and do the small amount that was left before Malfoy arrived the next night, so she rose up and left the laboratory to go to her room.

She had a bed in her room that she slept in because the coffins really creeped her out. The others had told her that the only way for them to sleep properly was to lay in a coffin, but she somehow still managed to get at least enough sleep in a bed. She pulled the curtains to cover her windows, the sky outside a lovely deep blue. The nights in Sweden never went black in the summer, even when the sun had set. That meant they had many hours to sleep and few to stay up on. On the other hand, she knew that it'd be the opposite in the winter. She guessed that's why Carl had chosen to stay in Sweden all these years. She went to bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

She woke up long before the sun had set. It peeked through the curtains and she had to be careful when she walked around the room, not to burn herself. She hadn't forgotten the accidents that had happened in the beginning when she still went out of bed without really waking up. She exited her room and thanked the architects who had designed the house, giving it very few windows, especially in the hallways. She managed to get her way to the laboratory and smiled to herself when it was empty. She had about two hours before Malfoy was supposed to show up, but that didn't mean he wouldn't go there when he was awake anyway. She sat down and started working.

He had wanted to sneak to the laboratory during the day and finish the sorting, but he hadn't. His mother had accompanied him almost all day; they had even taken a trip down to the nearby town to eat lunch. And when it had started to darken just the tiniest bit, he hadn't dared to go. He didn't want to seem too eager if Granger had gone there early, too. The sorting wasn't any fun anyway, and he didn't mind letting Granger do the rest of it.

When the sun couldn't be seen over the treetops anymore he went to the laboratory and found Granger already there.

"Granger", he said when he entered it. She looked up, a concerned frown in her face.

"There's a lot missing", she answered. He crooked an eyebrow at her.

"What a nice greeting of you."

She vowed her hand, going through the piles of books that now stood on her desk.

"Sorry. But seriously. This is probably not even half of Estelles note's, and I've gone through all the shelves and boxes in both laboratories. We'll never get a good picture of her life with just _half_ her life story. I bet that it's the good parts that are missing, too."

He frowned.

"They're probably just somewhere else", he said, sitting down by the other desk, swinging his feet on top of it. "The library?"

"I've checked there. I've even checked the bookshelves in the dining room, but that was just books for show. Some were really old, though. Do you know how old Carl is?"

He shook his head.

"No."

She sighed.

"Well, I suppose we'll just start reading these. And… maybe we can try and sneak around and see if the others are hidden somewhere."

She suddenly looked up.

"Maybe they're in Carls room. But I don't even know where that is."

"I'd guess the most grand bedroom?", Draco tried but she shook her head.

"No, he always disappears somewhere. I've heard this house has a lot of hidden rooms. Maybe it's underground. In the cellar or something. That'd make sense for a vampire, wouldn't it?"

"I guess. But what I know there's only storage down there."

Hermione sat silent for a while, staring in front of her.

"Wait a minute…" she said after a while. "You brought house elves with you, right?"

"Yes?"

"Can you… er, call for one?"

He wondered what she was thinking for a second before he obliged.

"Cranky", he then said in a louder voice, and with a small 'pop' an elf appeared in the middle of the room, bowing deeply.

"Yes, master?" it said without looking up. Draco looked up at Hermione, and motioned for her to talk. She was frowning deeply and even looked a bit offended. Then she opened her mouth.

"Cranky?" she said, her voice suddenly softer as if talking to a pet. The house elf rose and looked at Hermione, it frowning as well, clearly unsure of how to act in front of her. It looked back at Draco.

"Granger is still a witch, Cranky", he said with a tone of indifference and that seemed to be enough answer for the elf. It turned back to Hermione and bowed, though not as deeply as it had for Draco.

"Yes, miss Granger?" it said. Hermione seemed to think over her words thrice before uttering them.

"I wonder if you happen to know where Carl's room lies? And… please stand up", she added with a tone of desperation. The elf stretched up but didn't look up from the floor.

"Sorry, miss Granger, but Cranky doesn't know."

Hermione and Draco frowned in unison.

"How can you not know?" Draco asked.

"There is a part of a house that is… closed for us house elves. Cranky doesn't know how or why. All he knows is that we can get into some of the rooms… not that we'd liked to, anyway, mister. These creatures are awful monsters, my lord, you really should not…"

"Thank you", Draco interrupted and Cranky silenced. "You can go."

The elf bowed again and disappeared.

"You kno…", Hermione started.

"Stop", Draco interrupted as he held up a hand. "I don't want to hear it."

"But how do you know they…", she insisted as he sighed loudly and sat up in the chair.

"Didn't you hear what Cranky just told you? They don't want to serve vampires, so they don't. Do you think it'd be any different with wizards and witches? He almost didn't serve _you!_"

She looked taken aback, her mouth hanging open. Then she tilted her head.

"I… yes… but…"

"Just drop it. Are we going to read this or not?"

She seemed drop the subject and refocus.

"Yes. If you start with the first one… it's this one", she held one up and put it in the corner of her table, "I'll start with the second and when I'm finished I'll put it here", she motioned to the other end of the corner, "and you can take them when you finished the first one. And then we continue like that. Got it?"

He nodded and rose up to take the first book. "Got it."

"This way we don't need to wait up for each other, we'll just read these when we have time… You can start sleeping at night again, for example."

He chuckled slightly and flipped through the book.

"Right."

"Yes. I'll see if I can find the other books too. I'll let you know if I do."

He nodded again.

"Me too."

There was a moment of awkward silence where Draco stood in front of her desk, swinging the book in his hand. Then he turned around, and left.


	10. Chapter 10

Estelle's handwriting was neat and easy to read. Her notebooks were filled of various notes, of things that happened in her day, people she had talked to, what they had said, how they had smelled and looked, but also how she had slept, what kind of weather it had been, how it was going with a new spell she was working with, a new potion… There were pages filled with thoughts and fantasies, recipes, drawings and maps. Between some sheets a pressed flower or herb would fall out, some pages were stained of ink, tea, blood or something that looked like tears.

Hermione read a book on one or two nights. And what she could tell from the piles, Draco read almost as fast. She wrote down important dates and events in a notebook of her own, and she soon got a better picture of Estelle's background, but strangely almost none of Carls. She was too busy reading that she even forgot to look after the other books. She stayed in her room all night, apart from going to the laboratory to get the next one. After almost two weeks, she found a note lying on the desk.

'_Might've found something. Tomorrow, sunset, here'_ was all the note said but it didn't need more either.

The next night, Draco already sat in the laboratory when she arrived.

"What have you found?" she asked before she even entered the room completely. He smiled entertainingly at her, but didn't answer.

"Are you going to tell me or not?" she continued and stopped in the middle of the room, honestly too expectant to sit down.

"The other day, I… ran into on of Carls closest… _companions_, or what to call them. You know who I mean?"

She nodded. Two of the vampires were closer to Carl than anybody else in the house. They were called Elsa and Peter and didn't mix much with the other ones.

"I saw the woman going into a corner of a hallway and… well, never come back."

Hermione frowned.

"You mean that she disappeared?"

He nodded.

"I went after her to look if she just stood there, but she was gone. And there's no door. Not showing, at least. And I couldn't find one hiding either."

"What did you try?"

"All the revealing spells I know. I even tried thinking of it like when you wanted to get into the Room of Requirement."

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.

"It didn't work", he added.

She sat down at the edge of the desk.

"What do we do then?"

"I thought… maybe you need to be a vampire to open it."

She looked at him with a thoughtful look for a while, before nodding slowly and standing up again.

"Let's try it."

He showed her to the corner of the hallway where Else had disappeared, but no hidden door opened before them.

"Well, being a vampire apparently didn't do the deal", Hermione said as they observed the doorless wall. Then she turned to Draco.

"Can I borrow your wand?" she asked as if she was asking for the salt.

"What? Why? Don't you have your own?"

She sighed and held out a hand.

"It's not practical carrying around if I don't use it. Please. I wont break it."

Still unsure of why anyone would ever not carry his or her wand, he pulled it up and placed it in her hand. She looked at it with interest.

"It's a new one."

"Well, you took mine."

She suddenly smiled smugly, and nodded absently.

"Right. I don't know what happened with it after the battle. It probably broke."

He didn't understand how easy she talked about missing and broken wands either.

"Anyway. This'll just be a second", she continued and raised his wand to try a few revealing charms herself, but nothing worked. He observed her as she gave up and started thinking instead, watching the wall closely, touching it with her free hand, following the strips and decorations. Then she suddenly stepped back again, waved his wand, and a metal tool suddenly appeared in the air in front of them. She caught it before it feel to the floor, and handed him his wand back.

"What's that?" he asked as he put the wand safely back in his inner pocket. She held the tool up with an entertained smile.

"This, you square wizard, is a screwdriver. It's a muggle tool. It can be used to screw… well, screws, _or_," she shook her shoulders with an innocent smile, "break into cars or other places that are hidden or locked."

"And you've done that? With one of those?"

"No, I haven't. But it's not supposed to be very difficult."

She observed the wall again, and put the screwdriver between the lists, pulling slightly. It didn't take two seconds before it cracked and the list, together with a big piece of wall, loosened from the rest of the wall. They both stared at it for a while, Draco in complete shock and Hermione in entertainment.

"That went easier than I thought", Hermione said and put the screwdriver in one of her back pockets.


	11. Chapter 11

"Hello?" she asked, not very loudly, as she entered into the black space behind the hidden door. Draco followed suit.

"Close the door", he heard her whisper.

"Why? It'll be completely dark", he whispered back.

"It's a hidden door. It's not meant to be left open. Close it."

He reluctantly closed it, and it suddenly went all black around him.

"Let's go this way", he heard Hermione say again, this time from a further distance.

"What? I can't see a thing!" he shot out and raised his arms in irritation. "Where am I supposed to go? Left? Right? Forward? I don't know which is which!"

"Right. Sorry."

He frowned and tilted his head back as he wondered what the hell she meant by that. Then he suddenly felt her grip around his wrist and he flinched.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm leading the way, dick. Now shut up, please. I'm trying to listen."

"Why can't I just use my wand?" he asked.

"If you want us to get detected, go ahead."

He resigned when he realised he had no options, so he silenced and was suddenly dragged into a direction somewhere to his left.

They walked slowly, in silence, and it never seemed to get lighter. They turned once in a while, and sometimes went down short descents. Then Hermione suddenly stopped, and Draco almost walked into her.

"Someone's coming", she whispered in slight panic and he felt the grip on his wrist tighten.

"In here", she continued and dragged him back the way they came, then suddenly hard to the right, into what probably was some kind of side corridor. They took a couple of steps in there, and then he felt her release his wrist, only to get gripped by the shoulders, and she pulled him to the side until one of his shoulders was pressed to a wall, and the back of him pressed against Hermione. He could feel her making herself as small as possible, and just as he was about to say something, he heard footsteps too.

They held their breaths as the footsteps came closer, passed them, and disappeared the way they had come. They kept still for a few extra moments, until they were sure the person was way out of range to hear them.

"Why are you hiding behind me like a coward?" he dared ask for a while.

"I didn't do it because of that", she answered as she pushed him forward a bit, releasing herself from the tight spot between him and the wall. "She would have smelled me otherwise."

He frowned.

"What?"

"You don't smell, you know that. But your smell of nothing… it still exists. So it can cover mine. It really doesn't make any sense. Your non-existent smell exists. And us vampires… we can smell each other quite strong."

"Odd", he stated, and she suddenly laughed a little.

"Well… yes. Let's continue."

But she didn't take his wrist this time. Instead, she pinched the end of his sleeve and pulled him out of the small corridor. They continued walking in silence.

"We've walked for _ages_, aren't we ever getting somewhere?" Draco said after a good 20 minutes of walking, now greatly irritated by his lack of sight.

"I think we are, actually", Hermione answered and Draco immediately tried to figure out how she knew. He couldn't tell any difference in the light, it was still so dark he barely saw the contours of Hermione in front of him, even less the walls beside them. The air felt the same, cold and closed.

"How do you know that?" he had to ask at last.

"I can hear the lake."

He suddenly frowned.

"The lake?"

"The lake."

He had a hard time figuring out how they could be so near the lake she could hear it. They were in a dry aisle, the closest they could be was… Then it dawned on him.

"Are we walking _under_ the lake?"

Suddenly, they could se light at the end of the tunnel. It was a door that stood ajar. They approached it cautiously, and Hermione opened it silently. Behind it was a small pair of stairs that emerged into a living room.

"We're in a cottage", Hermione stated in surprise as they stepped into the deserted room.


	12. Chapter 12

The cottage was completely deserted. The living room looked like it had been cosy once, but now looked as if it had been left untouched for years. There was dust everywhere, books with muggle titles lay on different shelves, a coffee cup stood on a small table. There were only two other rooms in the cottage (apart from a toilet and a cupboard); a kitchen and a bedroom, but they all looked the same. As if someone had left it in a hurry.

"It's kind of creepy", Draco said as they gathered in the living room again. Hermione nodded absently, her gaze going out trough the big windows, where outside is was now becoming lighter. A small pit of panic started to form in her stomach.

"I have a problem", she said and Draco stopped in his steps as he was to go to check out a bookshelf.

"What kind of problem?" he asked as he followed her gaze out the windows.

"The hallway where the hidden door is in… It's got windows."

Draco crossed his arms as he realised what she meant. She didn't continue, and he could slowly see her starting to breath faster.

"Are you alright?" he asked after a while. She flung her arms and sat down abruptly in an armchair, which gave away a big cloud of dust as she did.

"No. I either get burned, or spend the day in a freaking cupboard", she sighed and actually pouted.

Draco suddenly snorted.

"Isn't that what Potter…" he started but silenced as she gave him a poisoned glare. In the end it drifted back out the windows.

"Why can't we just apparate back?" he asked and leaned toward the bookshelf, but Hermione shook her head.

"I can't. There is some kind of magic I just can't seem to do anymore. It's really annoying", she answered as she rested her head on one of her hands.

"Like what?"

She shook her shoulders.

"Almost any spell that like… includes people. Human bodies. Simple spells like the body binding spell, I can't do it anymore."

He hummed in answer.

"I should be able to apparate us, though?" he added after a few seconds and she suddenly looked up.

"Can you apparate in tandem?" she asked and stood up.

"Yes."

"Can we try it?" she continued eagerly as she stepped closer.

"We have to get back anyway", he said indifferently and held out hand. She gripped his wrist just as she had in the tunnel, and they disappeared with a loud crack.

They reappeared in Draco's room, and Hermione let go of him as they did. She looked around with a smile.

"Your room is nicer than mine", she said as Draco sat down in his favourite armchair.

"No wonder", he answered dryly but she didn't seem to get offended.

"What do you think of that cottage, anyway?" she continued as she went to pull the curtains over the one window that he had in there. He thought for a while.

"I don't know. As I said, it was quite creepy. It looked as if someone had lived there one moment, gone to the toilet, and disappeared the next."

She nodded as she sat down in the deep windowsill.

"I agree. And why is there a tunnel to it? And why is Elsa going there? It didn't look like it'd been touched for years. Not to mention it's a complete vampire-trap if you're not quick enough."

"Maybe it just works like some sort of back door."

She nodded as she thought it over.

"How's it going with the reading?" she asked after a while. He looked over to his desk, where the notebook he was currently reading lied in the centre.

"Good. They're… interesting."

"Tell me about it. I mean the spells and potions she did… its really advanced things. I would not be able to make them."

He chuckled a bit and reached for the book.

"Well, she was like 50 when she was turned, so I guess she had some years to practice."

"Right. And she was a teacher at Durmstrang. That has to mean something, I guess."

"Considering it's an all boy's school with all male teachers today, I'd say so, yes."


	13. Chapter 13

They fell silent again.

"What are you… doing in the real world?" Hermione asked after a few minutes of silence. Draco, who had started flipping pages in the notebook, looked up at her.

"In the real world?" he asked.

"Yes…" she continued awkwardly. "You know… back home. In England."

It took a few seconds for him to answer.

"Not much", he said at last.

"You're unemployed?"

"No. I'm just not… doing anything at the moment."

She smiled and nodded with raised eyebrows, looking down in the floor.

"Who are you to judge anyway? Are you doing anything?" he persisted. She started chuckling and looked up.

"No. I sleep like 15 hours a day, hide in the shadows for 5 and read the incomplete life story about a vampire-witch for the remaining 4. I guess you could call it research though."

He spun his chair so that he could put his feet up the table and glanced at Hermione out of the corner if his eye.

"They're not looking for you anymore, you know", he said out of the blue. She looked up at him with eyes that seemed darker than ever.

"I didn't", she answered, and her head tilted.

"Well, they don't. It was a big fuss about it the first months, but your tracks got cold and disappeared."

She nodded absently.

"That makes sense."

And silence fell again.

"Aren't you tired?"

He looked up at her as she sat in the window, her eyes meeting his firmly. He opened his mouth and frowned, but no answer came out.

"It's four o'clock in the morning."

His gaze directed to the grandfather clock that stood in the other side of the room.

"I guess", he answered. He had slept late in the morning, he always did, and never got up until it was time for lunch. But staying up to 4 o'clock in the morning was later than he was used to.

"Then go to bed", she said as she stood up from the windowsill. "There's still a few hours until morning."

He looked back at her as she stood awkwardly.

"I'll just… go then", she continued and went for the door.

"Night", he sighed silently as she was about to step out. She looked back and smiled sheepishly before closing the door behind her. He hadn't meant for her to hear it.

When it knocked on his door the following night, he wasn't really surprised.

"Am I bothering you?" Hermione asked as she stepped in the room. Draco sat back down in his chair with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders.

"Nah", was all he said and settled so that he could read comfortably, yet didn't drop his gaze. Hermione seemed to relax a bit and casually sat down in the same spot as yesterday.

"I was just… It's easier to talk about stuff than just think."

He arched an eyebrow at her, silently questioning her intentions.

"You know… two brains are better than one", she continued unwillingly and gave him a look that scarily much reminded of his mother when she tried to tell him to drop a lost subject.

"Sure", he said at last and looked down on his notebook. "Have you found any connections between you and Estelle yet?" he continued. Hermione settled more comfortably in the windowsill before answering.

"Beside the obvious… that we were both witches turned vampire… Germany."

He looked up in surprise.

"Germany?"

"Yes. I don't know if it means anything. Estelle was German; she lived there all her human life, and then some more. And I was found… and probably turned, in Germany."

Draco was silent as he thought of what she'd said. Yes, he remembered reading that Estelle had mentioned Germany once in a while. He also remembered what Carl had said, that a friend of his had found Hermione in north Germany. But was it just a coincidence? He suddenly frowned.

"Then why does she write in English?" he asked and Hermione immediately matched his frown. She opened her own book, her mouth hanging a bit open in uncertainness.

"That's a really good question."


	14. Chapter 14

The following nights, they seemed to come to a silent agreement that Hermione would arrive around 11 o'clock, when Draco had said goodnight to his parents and settled in his room for the night. They would sit in either silence and read, or occasionally talked about whatever. Draco always sat in his favourite chair, while Hermione could sit in as much a five different spots in one night. She had a tendency to walk back and forth when talking, and Draco realised he didn't really find her behaviour, or even presence, that disturbing at all. It was… fun, in a way, to read about Estelle, even though her notes had seemed a little boring in the beginning. There was no question that she had been a powerful witch, even as a vampire-witch. And it was surprisingly pleasing discussing the missing parts, out of what they had from notes from before and after. It was like a never-ending puzzle, and even if they seemed to never get closer to the end, they learned new things every night. Around 2 but not later than 3 o'clock, Hermione would leave, and Draco would go to bed. He spent his days not half as interesting as before, his current notebook almost always with him.

"Are you alright, Draco?" his mother asked him one day as they sat down on a bench in the garden, after playing with the mansions dog, a Swedish white elkhound named Sigge.

"Yes, of course", he answered.

"You seem a little distant", his mother insisted, her hand entangled in Sigges fur, petting him.

He didn't really know what to answer.

"How's it going with that Granger-girl?"

"Good", he answered with a sigh. He was uncomfortable talking about Granger with his mother, but she was his mother, and if she asked, he would answer. "We found a bunch of Estelle's old notebooks, and we're… reading them."

If anyone had told him a couple of years ago that he would actually talk about himself and Granger and call them "we", he would have laughed them in the face. Yet here he was, calling them "we" in front of his own mother, who had a smug smile on her face.

"You found anything interesting?"

He had to shake his head, and absent-minded petted Sigge who had now put his head on Draco's knee, eyes pleading for affection.

"Not really. There are a lot of notes missing, and most of them are just… what she did in her days. Not… her _story_."

His mother suddenly chuckled.

"Her days are her story, Draco. You're just reading it with a magnifying glass."

"Then how is Granger doing?" her mother continued after a while, when Draco never came with an answer.

"She's… very human. She's not as creepy as the others", he answered honestly. "She's still annoying, she's still… her."

She differed a lot from the other vampires in that way. Draco had never looked at them as humans. They were vampires, predators, hunters, killers. And every vampire he had even run into had looked and acted like everything he ever expected (except maybe for Carl). Hermione one the other hand, didn't stare at him like she wanted to rip his head off, her skin wasn't white as milk, her eyes not red and dark like she had put shampoo in it every other seconds. Yes, she was… pretty, yes, she was pale, yes, he never saw her in the daylight, but just the fact that he saw her at all, and talked to her like some sort of equal made her seem not very vampire at all. He had never seen her teeth, never seen her hunger, never seen her _very_ emotional (except perhaps for the dinner the first night), never ever seen her… sexy.

"Maybe that's the advantage of being both vampire and witch", his mother suddenly said, breaking him from his thoughts. "She still has some humanity in her."

"I would say a lot. She hasn't even fed since she was found."

Her mother suddenly looked worried.

"What?" he asked. She seemed to hesitate before answering.

"She's still a vampire, my dear. If she's so very human now, it will all backfire once she looses control of it."

He frowned and leaned closer to his mother, who tried to avert her gaze elsewhere in the garden.

"What do you mean?"

But she didn't answer. She smiled, rose up, called for Sigge, and left Draco on the bench as it dawned on him what she had said. His eyes flickered to the windows of the mansion, even though he knew no vampire could be seen in them without being touched by the sun.


	15. Chapter 15

_This is the first chapter where the Swedish language is included. If you don't know swedish, the translation is in [] right after the line. Hope it wont be too awful to read._

* * *

><p>Later that night Hermione arrived as usual, and Draco tried to not show that he couldn't forget what his mother had said. But they engaged in conversation about Estelle and Carl as every other night, and she didn't seem to notice that he felt tenser in her presence than he had in a while. Somehow, they ended up talking about the mansion and the nearby town.<p>

"I wonder what the townspeople think of the mansion. I mean, there must be rumours and all that", Hermione said from where she sat on his bed with crossed legs, careful not to ruin his bedding. He nodded.

"There's a pub. We can go there and… I don't know. If not to sneak around then to drink, at least."

She laughed.

"You know they wont have butterbeer or firewhiskey if it's a muggle pub."

"I know."

They fell silent and Hermione seemed to think it over.

"Why not. It might be fun. We'll have to go late though."

"I think they're open until 3 o'clock in the weekends, so it shouldn't be a problem."

The following day was a Friday, so they decided to meet up later than usual, at 12.30, and then walk to the town. It was a dark, cloudy night, and it took them about 20 minutes to reach town. It wasn't very big, and the pub seemed to be the only business there, apart from a small supermarket.

There weren't many people in the pub. By the bar sat an old man, behind it a woman. In a corner sat another man, and in another, a younger couple. Draco and Hermione approached the bar and sat down in the other end of where the old man sat.

"Vad vill ni ha ikväll, ungdomar? [What would you like tonight, youngsters?]" the slightly overweight woman said with a friendly smile.

"We're not Swedish", Draco said with a polite answer of a smile as they made themselves comfortable. The woman looked surprised.

"Oh, I see. Where are you heading, then?" she continued with surprisingly good English. Hermione frowned before Draco had the time to answer.

"What do you mean?"

The woman chuckled as she continued drying glass.

"Where you're heading, dear. No one ever stops here unless you're just passing by."

"Why is…" Hermione continued, but she was interrupted.

"We're staying at the mansion", Draco said with a tone of finality. The woman's approach suddenly changed.

"Oh! You're the Malfoy boy! I thought I recognized you!"

Draco nodded awkwardly and the woman put her glass down, not approaching them until now.

"What would you like tonight, then?" she asked with the same smile, and in the same moment, Hermione was overwhelmed with the scent of the woman's breath. She stiffened, held her breath and stared down the desk as the woman waited for an answer. Draco glanced at Hermione for a second before placing an order.

"We'll just start with two beers, thank you."

"Would you like a Pripps, Spendrups, Heineken or Norrlands Guld?" she continued.

"Eh, anyone", Draco answered confused. The woman nodded and walked away from them. "I'm Marie by the way, if you want anything else."

Hermione exhaled and inhaled deeply the moment Marie had taken more than five steps away.

"Are you alright?" Draco asked concerned, his mother's words fresh in his memory.

"I'm fine. I was just not… prepared for that", Hermione answered in a low voice and turned so that her face almost touched Draco's shoulder. There, her mouth only centimetres from Draco's jacket, she adjusted her breath before turning back with a straight face, smiling towards Marie as she handed them their beers with a "here you go."

"I've never had Swedish beer", Hermione then said. Draco observed her for a moment before answering. She looked relaxed, but sat closer to him than she necessarily would need.

"I've never had beer", he countered and she chuckled.

"How did you know what to order, then?"

He shook his shoulders.

"I went here with my parents when I was younger, once in a while. They always ordered beer. It's the standard drink, I understand."

She nodded as she took her first clunk from her beer. He dared a clunk the next second, and got surprised by how it didn't taste that awful.


	16. Chapter 16

"You two are quite silent over there", Marie said across the bar after a while. Draco and Hermione were both caught in their thoughts. They had drunken almost their whole bottles without saying a word. They shared a glance at each other.

"I guess we are", Hermione answered with an entertained tone.

"It's not like anyone here seems to be much of a talker, though", Draco added and Marie approached them again, a laughing smile dancing on her lips.

"That's true. When it's such a small town like ours, you run out of things to say pretty fast", she said and motioned to the other guests in the bar. "Meet my regulars. Fredrik over there in the corner is a farmer, and my brother in law, he's here every weekend. So is old Olle here. He's a bit of a weirdo, but we all love him anyway. He used to be a gardener at the Mansion, actually. He never runs out of stories, if he just remembers them."

Draco and Hermione leaned over in unison to watch the man who sat in the other end of the bar. He looked small and fragile yet tough and rough at the same time. In his big hands, he had a glass of whiskey, on his head a hat.

"Olle! Dessa ungdomar bor på herrgården du alltid pratar så mycket om! Du vet, familjen Malfoy! [_Olle! These youngsters live on the mansion you always speak so much of! You know, the Malfoys!_]" Marie suddenly shouted, and the old man looked up at them with a confused look.

"Familjen Malfoy? Kommer de hit än? [_The Malfoys? Do they get here yet?_]" he said, his voice husky and deep. Marie laughed loudly.

"Tydligen gör de la det [_Apparently they do_]", she replied and Olle nodded and looked back in his glass.

"He always has such stories of how the house is filled with monsters and creatures. No one really believes him. It's been deserted for years, except from when you come visit then."

Hermione almost choked on her beer.

"Monsters and creatures?" Draco asked as he managed to keep his face clean, pretending to be entertained and interested.

"Yes. Vampires, to be more exact", Marie continued with a never-ending chuckle.

"Oi! Jag kanske inte förstår dig, men jag är inte döv! Det _finns _vampyrer där! Jag har sett dem! [_Oi! I might not understand you, but I'm not deaf! There _are_ vampires there! I've seen them!_]" Olle suddenly shot back. Marie gave him a huge motherly smile.

"Vi vet, Olle, vi vet mycket väl. [_We know, Olle, we know very well._]"

The old man muttered before turning back to his whiskey again. Draco cleared his throat awkwardly.

"I'm sorry about that. You probably don't want to hear a bunch of rumours about your own house…" Marie said. Hermione held up a hand.

"We do! Please, tell us!"

The woman chuckled slightly and gave Draco a questioning look, but he just shrugged indifferently.

"Well, back in the day's when Olle was young, his father worked as a gardener at the mansion. So had his grandfather, and his father before that. Would you like another beer?"

They both nodded, and she gave them their beer before leaning comfortably on the desk, and continuing.

"Olle grew up on those lands, in those woods. He probably knows every path there is, every animal nest in the woods and where the fishes like it the best in the lake. He lived with his father and mother in a small cottage on the other side of the lake. His father was a very strict and silent man, harsh on traditions and manners. But he got sick, and passed away quickly. Olle's mother died, too, not many months later, and Olle was left alone to take care of the gardens and woods of the mansion. Back then, there was a man called Peter Karlsson who owned the mansion, before you Malfoy's bought it, or inherited it, or however you got hold of it. Peter Karlsson was a really strange man; he was rarely seen at all actually. So, Olle worked there for many years, until about twenty years ago, when he suddenly lost his job, and, unfortunately, most of his sanity. No one really knows what happened. He keeps talking about vampires, but it's probably just the drinking. Now he's just… growing old with a bottle of whiskey as his only companion", Marie finished with a sad sigh.

"That's so sad", Hermione said, leaning back to glance at Olle over Draco's back.

"So no one knows why or how he lost his job?" Draco asked. Marie shook her head.

"No. It's sad. He belongs there. It's hard to imagine what it must be like to loose something like that, something you've grown up with, worked with, lived with in your whole life. He's was sixty when it happened, and he would have easily worked for another 25 years."

"He'd work until he was 85?" Hermione suddenly asked with a deep frown. "Isn't the age for retirement like… 65 in Sweden?"

Marie chuckled.

"It is. But no one really stops working just because you can. If Olle would have had kids, he might not have worked for as long. But that would be a different story."

They nodded absently.

"Would you like something else perhaps? Snaps, whiskey, wine?"


	17. Chapter 17

An hour later, they were both mildly drunk, Draco a bit more than Hermione even if she had drunken both more and faster than him. The pub was now empty except for Olle, even Marie had disappeared somewhere backdoors.

"I had forgotten how nice it is to get drunk once in a while", Hermione sighed contently as she laid with her arms crossed over the bar. Draco chuckled.

"How are you even drinking anything at all? I thought you were supposed to not drink or eat normal things at all", Draco asked, leaning his face in one of his hands, and an entertained smile in his face.

"Apparently we can do alcohol, at least", she answered and they chuckled together before falling into a comfortable silence. She glanced at him.

"I must say I'm surprised of how… not unnice you are."

"Not unnice? What a compliment", he answered dryly but unserious.

"I'm serious. You haven't like… said anything mean to me this summer."

He gave her a meaning look.

"Well, I've grown up. And hey, you're a vampire. Didn't really want… to piss you off, I guess."

She chuckled again.

"Good point. I suppose you'd need to be an idiot to try and push a vampire around."

"I'm not an idiot, then?" he asked, his gaze matching his smirk. She smirked back.

"No. Just an asshole."

He was just about to shot a comment back when they heard deep coughing from behind. They turned around, and saw Olle observing them with an unreadable face.

"Hello", Hermione said awkwardly and waved towards him. He grunted, shook his head, put his hat on, and left the bar. They stared after him as the door shut after him.

"We should probably talk to him", Hermione stated after a while.

"How? He doesn't know English."

To get back to the mansion seemed to go a lot quicker than it had taken to get away from it. The alcohol in their bodies removed any kind of restrains they had on themselves, and they talked easily and comfortably as they walked.

"We should get back there soon and find a way to talk to Olle, though", Hermione said as they reached the mansion and stepped inside. Draco nodded in response. They stopped in a hallway where they were supposed to part, and stood in awkward silence for a moment.

"Well, I hope you get a good night's sleep."

"I'll sleep as a rock", Draco responded. Hermione blinked tiredly and nodded, before turning away and heading her own way. Draco looked after her for a while, and shook his head as he noticed he was checking her out. Then he turned too.

Hermione had a hard time falling asleep that morning. Her head was spinning, not only because of the alcohol, but because she had experienced something different tonight. She hadn't been around a normal human being in months, since she'd been turned, and she hadn't been prepared, especially not after spending so much time with Malfoy, that they would smell so intense. The moment they had stepped inside the bar she had been able to tell how many humans were in there, and what age and sex and state of mind they were. But it hadn't been overwhelming until Marie had approached them and literally puked her own scent over them. Hermione had felt a feeling inside that she didn't know what to think of. But she had pushed it away, and spent the rest of the night focusing on the non-smell of Draco's. She had had a surprisingly good time with him tonight, and it had been relieving to get out of the mansion and actually go somewhere.

But as she lay in bed, the memories of the smells and the tastes she had felt tonight came back. The scent of Marie's breath, the smell of Olle's sweat, saliva from the couple that had left pretty soon after they had arrived, the scent of not only alcohol, but fresh air and woods filled her mouth and nostrils. The sounds of everyone breathing, moving and talking rung in her ears. The sight of Marie's swaying body, Olle's deep eyes and Draco's skin etched on the inside of her eyelids. She sat up abruptly and moaned in despair and irritation. She tried to shake it off by relaxing, but it only seemed to make it worse. She could feel her heartbeat increasing and something tickled in her mouth. As she raised her hand to check what it was, she panicked. For as long as she could remember of her time as a vampire, she had never grown her teeth. Yet there they were, big, pointy and sharp and almost aching for being used. She crept back and pushed herself against the headboard, doing her best to slow down her breathing and in that way her heartbeat. Slowly, but unsurely, she succeeded. It took several hours for her to fall asleep after that.


	18. Chapter 18

It was now Hermione's turn to spend time with Draco and not feeling completely comfortable with it. What had happened the other night had scared her more than anything, but she had managed to convince herself that it wasn't a reason not to continue seeing Draco. Sure, she had lost control for a second, but she had thought it over and realised it had happened only after they had separated. Draco wasn't the problem. In fact, it seemed to be the other way around.

They now knew who had lived in the cottage they had found about a week ago. Finding out it used to be Olle's had answered a question or two, but still left a dussin unanswered.

"It's must be frustrating telling the truth and be mistaken for crazy", Hermione said one night as they were discussing it again.

"Yeah. But if he found out they were vampires, what could they really do except kill him? It's not like they could obliviate him."

"That's true. He got to keep his life in return for his reputation."

Draco nodded and stretched in his armchair. The clock was already nearing 2 o'clock and he was growing tired.

"What do you think of Peter?" Hermione asked as Draco rose up and put his notebook away. He shrugged.

"I don't know. I've barely ever seen him."

Hermione nodded in agreement and looked up when she felt the bed move beside her. Draco had flung himself on top of it, rubbing his eyes with his hands.

"Why do you ask?"

Hermione returned to her book, a tiny frown on her forehead.

"I don't know. He seems odd. He always looks at me in a creepy way. Staring."

"Perhaps he's afraid you'll be hard competition."

"Competition?"

"Yeah. He's Carls right hand. Maybe he thinks that Carl will take interest in you because you're like… you know, Estelle. His mate."

Hermione wrinkled her nose at the thought.

"I don't want to be Carl's new mate."

Draco suddenly chuckled.

"That's not what I said. You probably just have more potential than many others to get close to him."

They fell silent again, Hermione reading her notebook and Draco simply lying in bed, on the verge of falling asleep. A few minutes later, his breath slowed down and she glanced down at him. She arched her back to straighten up (with a few accompanying pops) and laid down on her side beside him, a hand under her head and continuing reading the book. She knew that she probably should leave, but it's not like he would know if he slept anyway. There was something strangely soothing hearing the repetitive sounds of breathing and sleeping, so she decided to stay just a little while longer. She was only going to read anyway.

When Draco awoke the next morning, he felt extremely hot. He sat up as he realised that he had slept in his clothes, and he shook his head as he yawned.

"Cranky", he said as he swung his legs off the bed and the elf appeared with a pop.

"Morning, master", it said and bowed.

"When did Granger leave?" Draco continued as he tugged of his clothes and changed into fresh ones.

"Just before 3 o'clock, sir. She stayed and read for a while after sir had gone to bed."

"I found a new name", was the first thing out of Hermione's mouth when she entered Draco's room later that night. Draco, who was now used to Hermione starting talking without even greeting, looked up with only mild interest.

"Yeah? Who?"

Hermione approached him and put her current notebook down on the desk next to where he sat.

"Eldric the Mad", she said and pointed to where he was mentioned. Draco leaned over to catch it.

"_Got news of Eldric the Mad today. It said that he has passed. Probably for the better. But I will never forget what he did to me. I have an eternity to remember now."_ Hermione read out loud. "So I went to the library", she continued and opened another book that she had brought with her.

"Eldric the Mad was a wizard who lived between 1642 and 1705, died from an experiment gone wrong at age 63. His work was often unsuccessful and even more often quite questionable, even for his own time. He experimented with living creatures; magicians, muggles, elves, centaurs… vampires."


	19. Chapter 19

"I think we can be almost sure Eldric the Mad was the one to turn Estelle vampire. More or less, at least. He was German, as well", Hermione concluded.

"But that doesn't explain you. He's been dead for 300 years", Draco responded as he leaned back in his armchair again. Hermione nodded absently and leaned on the desk, reading further in the book she had brought with her from the library. As the night went on, Draco noticed that Hermione seemed more restless than usual. Sure, she read in silence as always, only once in a while saying or asking him something. But she didn't sit still for long. She had started off standing beside the desk, but at least one bodypart of her never stood still. It started with a tapping finger, and at one moment her whole upper body was moving in tiny rocking.

"Are you all right?" he asked cautiously after a while, when she had seated herself in the windowsill after taking a few irregular steps through the room. She looked up at him with a slight frown.

"Yes. I'm just a bit on edge. I hate being in that moment where it's like… the answer is just around the corner but you don't have enough information to just… take that final step around. It's very infuriating."

He arched an eyebrow at her, half in surprise, half in entertainment.

"Do you want a Butterbeer?"

She looked up at him with a slightly chocked expression.

"You have Butterbeer?"

"Of course I do."

Her words seemed to get stuck in her throat.

"Are you telling me you have had Butterbeer all this time?"

"As I just said, yes", he repeated. She gaped for a second, but then shut her mouth abruptly.

"Yes. I would love one", she then said with an overly polite tone, and in the same moment, Cranky appeared with a plate topped with two glasses and four bottles of beer.

"How did he…" Hermione started asking as the elf put the plate down on the desk and disappeared again.

"He's an elf, Granger", Draco said with a clear tone of finality, and rose up to open the bottles.

Even if she really didn't want to drop the subject, she hadn't had Butterbeer in a long while. Months. Years, even. She had realised on her trips that Butterbeer wasn't as common in other European countries as in England, if you ever even found a wizard pub at all. And so, when Draco handed her a glass filled with the honey tasting beer, she had completely forgotten how disapproving she was of Cranky bringing them in the first place and she drank half of it in one go.

Not as restless anymore, and with glass in hand, she returned to reading more about Eldric the Mad. If she had still looked up, she would have seen Draco's humoured smirk and shake of his head, but she didn't.

Another 30 minutes later, it was Draco's turn to become a tad bit restless. He put his notebook away, together with his now empty glass, and rose up to fill it again. As he did, he sighed and lifted his free hand to massage his neck, which was becoming more and more stiff. Hermione glanced up at him as he rolled his head in an effort to stretch his neck muscles.

"Are you stiff?" she asked and Draco stopped in midair, his glass halfway up to his mouth.

"What?" he managed to say.

"In your neck? Are you stiff?" she repeated and he relaxed as he understood what he meant. He cleared his throat.

"Just a bit", he answered and took a sip from his glass before turning around to sit down on his bed instead.

"Can I… try something?" she asked gently, and he peeked up at her. Then he sighed.

"Sure", he said, even if he didn't really know what he was agreeing to. He was a bit too tired to really care, and he unintentionally trusted her not to do anything too weird. And so, when she stood up and went over to the bed where he sat, he didn't say anything. Neither did he say anything when she sat up in it, and seated herself behind him with her legs crossed. He waited for what she was about to do, and wasn't so surprised when he felt her cold hands on his shoulders, but he instantly frowned at the touch.

Hermione, on the other hand, was caught off guard by the feeling of flesh under her hands. She could feel the heat radiating out from Draco on her palms, and through her fingertips she could feel his heartbeat. She took a deep breath before refocusing on what she was about to do, wondering if she could still do it. She kneaded his shoulder muscles with such light pressure, and yet she could still feel what felt like every single drop of blood running through his veins. She closed her eyes and started whispering the words.

Draco, who had unconsciously closed his eyes when she had started massaging him, opened them again when he heard her talking. He frowned for a second until he could decipher what she did, and as he did he felt it too. In tune with her whispering of healing spells, was the hot feeling of magic spreading through her fingers down to his muscles, and he gasped silently. He had never experience anything like it before, and it was strangely pleasing and hurtful on the same time. She continued, her hands going from his muscular coats to his delta muscles, and then continuing down his back. When she stopped herself from going too far down his back, she lifted her hands again and massaged his neck again, going closer to his hairline and eventually rubbing her fingers in his light hair. As she did, she couldn't help but pull a hand through it, amazed by how easily his hair went through her fingers.

"Not as bushy as yours, is it?" Draco suddenly mumbled and Hermione actually jumped a little in surprise.

"Um, yeah", she answered as she cleared her throat. She was a bit put off for a moment, but continued when she realised he hadn't told her to stop yet. Her hands went down his back again, where she could feel his heartbeat so well it felt as if she could hear it. Then she lifted one of her hands off him, and put it against her own neck, trying to find her own pulse, but as always, and as creepy, she didn't.

"Granger…" Draco said after a while, his tone unreadable. Her hands were kneading his neck again, and he was well too aware that he was more relaxed than he should be in her presence. His neck wasn't hurting anymore; instead her touch was sending shivers of pleasure and something else down his spine. "You should stop", he managed to finish, but she didn't. If Draco hadn't been so tired, he'd grown irritated by her lack of response.

"You really should stop", he said again, so silent it was almost a whisper. He could feel her lean closer.

"And why is that?" she asked as silent in his ear, and it made him shiver again.

"Because… we're not supposed to be like this", he answered, but he could hear himself how stupid it sounded. Hermione's hands had stopped, but they still lay on his shoulders.

"What are we supposed to be like?"

Draco shook his shoulders under her hands, but made sure not to do it too quick so that she would take them off.

"We're supposed to hate each other."


	20. Chapter 20

"And why are we not?" Hermione had asked, her hands still remaining on his shoulder. "Why are you not like you used to?"

It took a while for him to answer.

"I don't know. I could never stand you. You were a besserwisser. You were a know-it-all. You were muggleborn. You were challenging. You were everything I was told you were not supposed to be and that was annoying."

Hermione nodded silently behind him even if he couldn't see it.

"And then what?"

He sighed, and his gaze drifted of to the window. It seemed to become lighter.

"And then my father went to Azkaban and the war started" he said. Hermione's hands had finally dropped from his shoulders, and they just sat in silence.

"What was it like? Being… one of them", Hermione asked after a while again. She could see him tense up at the question.

"It was hard", was all he answered, and she felt like she understood.

"What was it like for you?" he asked back, and she smiled weakly, knowing what to answer.

"It was hard", she said, and it was Draco's turn to realise that neither of them really needed to explain more.

"It's ironic though, being a war hero before you've even turned 20", she added after a while, her voice rough and sarcastic.

"At least you have time to get yourself a new name", Draco responded.

"So do you", she said, but Draco snorted in disbelief.

"With this as proof?" he asked and pulled the sleeve of his shirt up, lifting his arms to show her the Dark Mark on his left fore arm.

"With _this_ as proof?" she imitated and pulled her own sleeve up, leaning over so that her own left forearm rested next to his, her chin resting lightly on his shoulder. He looked at their forearms and how opposite marked they were, the dark skull on his representing black magic, pureblood, and the Dark Lord. And Hermione's arm, marked with the words Mudblood, the letters ghosting even whiter than her normal skin.

"Why are you reading the journals with me? You could just as well done it alone", Draco asked after a while. He could feel her head move on his shoulder, thinking.

"I don't like being alone", she answered at last. "And you're not awful."

He chuckled.

"I should go", Hermione then said with a glance towards the window. "It's getting light."

And with that, she jumped off the bed and collected the two books she had brought with her. "I think we should try and talk to Olle soon. Come up with a reason to make him see us in private."

Draco nodded thoughtfully.

"See you tomorrow", she said and left with a nod.

Draco remained sitting on the edge of his bed for a while, too tired to rise up and get undressed.

The following day had the worst weather yet to been of the summer, and Draco kept inside all day. The sky was darkened by thick thunderclouds and the sun was nowhere to be seen. It rained heavy, but as the afternoon went on, there were still no sounds of actual thunder. Draco decided to spend his evening in the laboratories, since he couldn't sit outside and read in the evening sun like he used to. When he got there, though, he found himself too restless to sit down and read. The rooms were so filled with stuff it was hard sitting still in there, so he ended up rooming around them, looking through various books, tools and instruments that stood in there. At last, he ended up by one of the desk and started to skim through a book about monsters. As he did, his eye got caught on a detail on the desk that he hadn't seen before. It looked like a simple ornament, but there wasn't a representing one on the other side, and so he put the book away and inspected it closer. It was a shape of a rose in marquetry; so dark it almost melted in with the usual colour of the desk. Draco fished his wand out of his pocket, and swung it in front of the rose, trying the simplest unlocking spell he knew. To his wonder, it clicked open immediately and the rose shot out of the desk, allowing him to grip around it, twist it, and pull a small box out of the desk.

Inside lay an old, frayed and yellow photograph of a woman, a dried herb and yet another, but tiny, notebook. Draco pulled it all up with carefulness and put it on the desk in front of him, having a hard time realising what he had just found. But there was no mistaking it. At the front of the notebook was a big fancy EB, and on the back of the photograph, "_Estelle 1857_".


	21. Chapter 21

Three hours later, it knocked on his bedroom door just as every other night, and Hermione stepped inside.

"I've been thinking about how we can find an excuse to –"

"Granger", Draco suddenly interrupted, and Hermione stopped in her steps and frowned at him as he sat in his usual chair.

"What?" she asked impatiently when he never continued. She had yet to recognize that the book he had in his knee didn't look like the regular ones, but as he continues to stay silent, she noticed how the book he was supposed to be reading lay on his desk, together with another thicker book, and something that looked like a tiny bouquet of herbs. As her gaze went from his desk to his lap, he picked something up from it and held it up from her to see.

"This is Estelle", he said plainly, and she stepped closer to examine the yellow photograph closely.

"Where did you find this?" she asked as she pinched it between her fingers, taking it from him.

"In the laboratory… But that's not the thing. Don't you think she resemble someone?" he answered edgily. Her frown deepened as she studied the photograph.

"She looks like me", she answered after a while. Draco huffed in slight disagreement.

"She looks _exactly_ like you. Twice your age, of course."

She looked up at him.

"That's kind of creepy", she stated, and he arched an eyebrow at her. He thought it to be quite the understatement, but let it drop.

"I found this as well", he continued and held up the smaller notebook, "and that", and pointed at the pack of purple herbs. "I think you will enjoy this one most, though."

He handed her the notebook, and she started flipping it through.

"Oh my god", she mumbled as she turned page after page. "This is her biggest… how she managed having child… walk in the _sun_… have her…"

Draco knew what page she had arrived at, and turned properly in his chair to watch her reaction.

"I can have my magic back", she said at last, in the process sitting down on his bed as if she had a hard time realising what it meant. "Where did you find this?"

"As I said, in the laboratory. There was a hidden box in one of the desks, it opened with Alohomora."

Hermione nodded slowly.

"That proves Estelle was the one to hide it."

"Does it?"

"Yes, well, in a house where you're the only one able to do magic, I'd hide it with Alohomora too."

He made a face of acknowledgement. He had never though of Alohomora as a particularly handy spell, since it was one of the first you learned as a witch or wizard. Therefore, hiding something with that wasn't very good hiding at all. But if no one else knew how to do it… it was suddenly very different.

"This is amazing", Hermione said and broke Draco out of his thoughts. "It's not even a very hard potion… It's just a bit rare ingredients… but the rarest one is lying right there, isn't it?" she continued and pointed towards the herb. Draco nodded and picked it up. "It's probably at least three times more than what you need for that, too. She used it in a lot of places", he said and watched it closely. The bouquet consisted of four dried stalks, topped with purple flowers. "I've never seen it before."

"I've only read of it. It's used for Felix Felicis, for example. It's insanely rare. Even more insane qualities when used."

They fell silent for a while, both watching the bouquet of herbs in Draco's hands, both deep in thought.

"We should get started. Is it okay if I read this?" Hermione said after a while, holding up the smaller notebook.  
>"Sure. I've already read it for three hours."<p>

She looked chocked for a moment, then raised her hands as if to ask why the hell he hadn't told her earlier, let them drop, bit her lip, and started reading with a determined look. Draco was in no rush to continue reading his own notebook, and started of their night in his thoughts, staring aimlessly in his room, turning his chair unintentionally once in a while.

Whatever the deal with Estelle was, it seemed to grow bigger and bigger. It seemed to get further and further away even if they got closer, as well. What good would it do when they had found everything out anyway? It was not like they _needed_ to find out, like their lives hanged on it. It was different, doing something out of curiosity, out of what-else-did-he-really-have-to-do? Sure, it took a lot of him time, and Hermione seemed to take with such dead seriousness it was almost becoming like homework, but he hadn't minded yet. It was interesting… it was exiting… it was something. More than nothing. More than spending the days reading books because he had nothing better to do. More than chatting with his mother about weather and food. More than chatting with his father about business. More than being the third or fourth or even fifth wheel at a dinner, brought along like a well-behaved dog. He didn't know why he didn't have a job. He didn't know why he hadn't moved away from home. He just hadn't. He had stayed with his mother while his father had been imprisoned, and then for a little while longer, and he had gotten stuck in that pattern of doing nothing. Going to Sweden this summer had been nothing else than a change of environment. Having something to think about… it was nice. Having regular company… even if he had never actually enjoyed company that much, this was different. This was not someone staying silent behind him, sniggering when something wasn't even funny. This wasn't someone squirming for him, or judging him, or watching him. It was different. It was unforced, mutual and non-demanding. They both read, and they did it in each other's presence. That's it.

"What are you thinking of?" Hermione asked without looking up from her book. Draco shrudded.

"Nothing. Everything."

He could see a tiny smile emerge on her lips.

"Does it bring you any enlightenment?"

He chuckled.

"No."


	22. Chapter 22

Several days passed as they read the few notebooks that were now left. Hermione had kept the photograph of Estelle, and it now lay on her bedside table. The fact that they looked so alike creeped her out, but it wasn't like it was the only thing they had in common. She had borrowed several more books from the library, looking up the phenomena of doppelgangers, but there really wasn't much information. It was hard to tell if they really, _really_ were just that, doppelgangers, because Estelle was in the fifties, and Hermione in her 20's. And she always would be. She had come across the thought that she might perhaps be a descendant, like the Malfoy's, and she had checked up their family history, with no result. Even if Estelle and Carl had had two children, their children and grandchildren and grand grandchildren after that only ever had one, if even that. Today, the Malfoy's were the only one's left.

The remaining notebooks didn't tell them very much that they didn't already know. Hermione reread the smaller one as Draco read the very last notebook, and the night they had finished all of the notebooks, a little more than half the summer had passed.

"I'm done", Draco said as he closed the last notebook. Hermione looked up at him and hinted a smile, laying away her own one as well.

"So, what should we do now?"

"Didn't you want to make that potion that wakes your magic up?"

She looked hesitant.

"I do. But it requires a lot of ingredients we don't have here."

"So? We'll get them."

She narrowed her eyes at him, eyeing him seriously.

"I'll need a lot of your help", she said cautiously, but he just nodded.

"I don't really have much else to do."

It took them two additional days to retrieve the ingredients needed for the potion. Most of them, Draco had been able to get in the Diagon Alley. A few of the really common ones, they had purchased on a late night visit at the supermarket located in the nearby town. After they had prepared the potion, it would take yet another week for it to finish.

"We are to stir in it two times a day, three turns clockwise", Hermione read aloud from the small notebook as they had added the last ingredients to the small cauldron they'd found and thoroughly cleaned in one of the laboratories. The potion was now a strong green, but was supposed to become clear like water by the end of the week.

"So now we just wait, I suppose", she continued and leaned upon the desk in which Draco had found the hidden box, Draco standing beside her. "Remember how much I owe you, you'll get it back."

"It's cool", he responded, cause it really didn't bother him. She sighed and shook her head slightly, and he guessed she would remember it no matter how hard he forgot himself.

"I can't believe we could get some of these things from a muggle supermarket", he said even if had done so several times already.

"And cheaper too. Not as fancy bottles or etiquettes, though", Hermione responded and held up one of the honey bottles they had bought. Hermione had insisted that they would buy it like that, even if he could have gotten it when he'd been in London. He'd been curious and lazy enough to agree.

She heaved herself up so that she sat completely upon the desk, and started flipping through the notebook as she had so many times before. Draco, on the other hand, claimed the chair and sat down to distracted practise one of the spells he had read about in one of Estelle's books. It wasn't a particularly hard one, but he hadn't heard of it before, and he'd found that the twist required of the wand to do it had been trickier to perfect than he'd expected.

Hermione looked up after a while, unavoidably curious in the end.

"What are you doing?" she asked, and Draco broke from his concentration.

"Er… it's Estelle's Storm Summoning spell. I'm practising the movement", he answered and she looked slightly impressed.

"That's really advanced magic", she said and watched with interest as he continued twisting his wand. "And old. The words are different, aren't they?"

He nodded.

"It's a whole sentence."

"Do you want to try it for real?" she continued, an exited smile playing on her lips, and he felt a mix of inconvenience and excitement in his belly.

"Why not", he said, once he had thought it over. He wouldn't know whether he'd gotten the right twist without actually trying, so he couldn't say no. Hermione jumped up from the desk, leaving the notebook on it, and went down the rusty staircase that connected the two laboratories, because only the bottom one had windows. He rose up and followed her, and as he stepped down on the somehow colder floor of the lower room, Hermione stood expectantly by the windows, pulling the thick and dusty curtains away as he got closer. Outside, the moon shone bright and there was not a cloud in sight.

Draco raised his wand; Hermione leaned into the folded curtains and disappeared in his peripheral sight as he focused on the dark sky outside, counting his breath.

"_Clouds of black, clouds of white…_", he started, at first unused and uncertain by the different way to verbally manage the spell, but with every character strengthening his pronunciation, "_come thee here and bring thy rain, I summon a storm to the earth under._"

He hadn't even thought of the movements of his hand, but it seemed to have moved by itself. In the sky outside, clouds emerged out of nowhere.

"Wow", he heard Hermione murmur beside him, and he glanced at her just in time to see the moon reflect in her eyes, making them almost white, before it disappeared behind dark clouds. Only seconds later, the rain started smattering against the window.


	23. Chapter 23

Hermione had been so eager to learn the Storm Summoning Spell as well, they had spent the following week practising all of the spells Estelle had written about in her notebooks. It meant nights full of work, and it had reminded Hermione strongly of the Dumbledore's Army's meeting they had had in their fifth year. Draco was a good opponent, learning the spells almost as fast and naturally as herself, in the progress triggering her competitiveness. Many of the spells were like the Storm Summoning one; old fashioned and nothing like they ever experienced before. They almost always required a whole charm to be said to work, but not necessarily a wand, making the two of them practising a kind of magic they had never touched before. Draco succeeded better than Hermione when the wand wasn't required, and they had assumed it was because of Hermione lack of some magic.

Draco had been assigned the answer to stir the potion, partly because he was the one of them to have days longer than 12 hours, but also because of the same reason he managed wandless spells better than Hermione – he had more magic than her.

One night when Hermione headed towards Draco's room as always (she had walked the route so many times now it felt like she could have known it even without any of her senses), she got lost in thought. She had gotten into a pattern of their everyday that perhaps was too comfortable to be good. She would spend her days sleeping, and her nights with Draco. If anyone'd told her this a couple of years ago, she would have called them nuts. Yet here she was, distracting her mind from thinking difficult thoughts, like of her parents, her home, her friends… her life.

She was too deep in thought to notice that she wasn't alone in the hallways. When she stepped around the last corner, she stopped firmly as she noticed she probably was early.

Draco and his parents stood talking in front of his doors, what she heard, saying goodnight. When Draco noticed her, both his parents followed his distracted gaze, and Hermione found herself with the whole Malfoy family staring at her.

Lucius' look stern and hard, a hint of a frown in his forehead. Narcissa's surprised and neutral, her hand halfway up her lips.

Draco's, awkward and uncertain, turning back to his parents as they looked back at him. There was a moment of strained silence.

"Never mind", Lucius said as last, and motioned for his wife to carry on to their own bedroom, located further down the hallway. Narcissa glanced back at Hermione one last time before following her husband. Draco watched them disappear behind their own door before turning back to Hermione.

"You're early", he said dismissively and opened his door. Hermione walked the last bit up to him; her feelings tangled and mixed in her stomach.

"Sorry", she mumbled as she closed the doors behind them, frowning deeply.

"What's wrong?" he sighed as he noticed that she didn't move as freely (a bit too freely, often) as she always had in his room. She looked up at him, uncertain of what to answer.

"I don't like your father", she blurted out at last and observed him as she waited for a reaction. She knew that Draco cared for and loved his parents deeply, but that didn't stop the fact that his father was… a foul person, in Hermione's eyes. When Draco neither said nor did anything to show what he thought of it, she tilted her head in confusion.

"Are you just going to accept it like that?" she asked, and he made a grimace of indifference.

"I'm not asking you to spend time with him. You can think what you like."

She couldn't help but become stunned by his answer.

"Wow. That's kind of… mature", she said with a tone of humour. "Good for you."

He chuckled and pulled a hand through his hair.

"Whatever."

They caught each other's eyes for a moment and silenced. Her brown eyes bore at him which such curiosity and expectations he grew a bit uncomfortable. Then they darted from his eyes to somewhere else in his face, and she suddenly cleared her throat.

"Something special you want to try tonight?" she asked and he nodded thoughtfully.

"The moonlight spell", he responded.

The moonlight spell had been the only spell they had practised for days but yet to succeed. Several hours later, it would seem as if they weren't going to do it tonight either.

"This is ridiculously hard!" Hermione groaned as she gave up for the last time, sitting down in Draco's bed in pure defeat. Draco couldn't help but laugh at her pouting, and she glared at him.

"Like it's gone better for you", she muttered and leaned back to stare into the roof of his bed.

"It hasn't", he said as he dropped down on the bed beside her, snickering at her consistent pout.

"Well, then you have more patience than me. The things I'm learning about you tonight", she continued, her voice dripping with both irony and defeat.

"Nice to be of service", he responded, as sarcastic as her. She rolled her eyes at him, and he laughed quietly, rubbing his eyes and then his temples. They fell into an odd silence, and lay shoulder-to-shoulder staring up in his roof. The sound of Draco's breathing slowly calmed Hermione down, and it took her a while to notice that he was watching her and she met his eyes.

"You have incredibly grey eyes", she stated in a muted voice. "They're like the moon."

And with that he lifted his arm, placed it on her cold cheek, and kissed her.


	24. Chapter 24

Hermione's first thought was of how warm he was. His lips seemed hotter than anything she'd ever touched, and she suddenly felt cold. He retracted his mouth, only for a centimetre, and she got a lump in her throat as he breathed hotly against her lips. She forced her gaze from his mouth to his eyes and frowned.

"What was that?" she asked and he countered her puzzled look.

"Didn't you like it?"

She bit her lip as she thought about it, and the taste that remained there answered the question. But it didn't cure her unease.

"I did", she answered, and he leaned in to kiss her again.

He didn't know why he did it. He only knew that he really wanted to. And really, why shouldn't he?

Her lips were chilly and gave him goose bumps. They tasted sweet and minty and bloody wonderful. He heightened the pressure as she responded, and it felt like his gut would explode when she opened her lips and invited him in. His hand dove into her hair to pull her closer, and their tongues crashed.

As they did, Hermione's eyes flew open in shock, and she gasped into his mouth. Even if his lips had tasted amazing, they were nothing like his mouth. She couldn't even define what it was, only that it was scarily amazing. Her right hand found itself to Draco's left hip, and she squeezed the bone through his shirt. Hermione was beginning to loose track of her thoughts, and soon they were gone completely. All she knew was that her mouth was filled with the taste of Draco, her nose of his scent, her ears the noise of their kissing and ragged breaths, through her hands… Through her hands she felt his heartbeat, and the way it caught up in speed felt different from anything she'd ever experienced before.

Now Hermione wasn't like any holy Maria exactly, but neither did she have a big repertoire of boys she'd made out with to show up. There's been a few, but Hermione had never been too interested in having a boyfriend or being in a relationship. She wasn't very good at it either, she'd been told, because she always prioritized books, school, work, research…

She'd never feel her gut flutter or an imaginary heart beating in time with somebody else's. Draco had lifted himself up a little, supporting himself on one arm; the other hand gripped her neck firmly, as if to make sure she wouldn't retreat.

Hermione wouldn't.

Her other hand was in his hair now, the hair that was so white and so much smoother than her own. The hair that had represented everything she hadn't liked at Hogwarts. Everything she hadn't liked but was now making out with. He left her mouth and she sighed in time to feel his lips on her neck instead. The irony of that. The way he kissed, sucked and nibbled along her neck, below her ear, on her jaw, on the skin above her collarbone gave her shivers deep down her spine. His hand curved her hip and pushed them together further.

"Draco, I…" she started, stuttering, her eyes tightly shut and her curly hair spread out on the bed below her head.

"Shh", he responded firmly, knowing she was only going to make them stop, and he didn't want to. He wasn't going to take it too far.

He was happily surprised when she obliged, because he had assumed she would not. The thought of Hermione, nerdy, geeky, know-it-all, do-it-right Hermione, obliging to him was insanely appealing and their mouths found each other again.

They didn't stop for quite some time later, Draco's hands tangled in Hermione's hair and their breaths heavy.

"Did you call me Draco?" he asked in surprise as he suddenly realised what she had said. She looked just as caught of guard as he felt.

"I guess I did."

To be honest, Hermione had referred Draco as Draco in her head for quite some time now, but she had made sure to keep the formalities up when they talked. It didn't feel as creepy, but she couldn't think Malfoy without thinking of his parents, and she really didn't want to do that in a situation like this. When she explained it to him, he started laughing.

"Good point", he responded and leaned closer again. "I'll allow you to call me Draco in situations like these", he sneered and she grinned back. She knew it was a discrete way to promise it would happen again. And surely, he closed the space between them yet again, and gave her the longest and most sincere kiss she'd ever had with anyone. She couldn't help but smile sheepishly and blush as she rose up from his bed a moment later and left his room with an awkward "goodnight".

As she walked back to her own room, she couldn't help to compare what had just happened to her previous… spectacular kisses. Her first kiss, with Krum, was nothing to talk about. It'd been awkward and weird and just… not right. The kiss she and Ron had shared during the battle of Hogwarts, when she'd thought they might not be so likely to live the day, had been impulsive, adrenaline-rushed and right. To be honest, these two were the only two Hermione had ever kissed (and one of them only once) and it felt little when she thought of it like that. It also felt wrong comparing it with kissing Draco, because, let's be honest, her senses and emotions were all heightened and she hadn't been close to anyone in month's… years, even. And there was something dangerously exiting about kissing someone you really should not do anything with, kissing the least.

She licked her lips and stopped in her tracks to look back the way she'd just came before entering her own room. She wondered what Draco did, what he thought, if he regretted it. She sighed. She would have to see tomorrow.


	25. Chapter 25

When Hermione woke the following evening, she felt incredibly nervous. But not because she had just some hours previously _kissed_ Draco Malfoy, as you might have thought, but because tonight would be the night when the potion would finish. That meant that tonight would either be the night where she got all her power back (and she really wanted that), or they'd made a mistake and it would be the night where she lost all of them, because something always goes terribly wrong when you drink a potion that hasn't been made in the right way.

She knew they had done it right. She knew but she couldn't help but worry and imagine the worst anyway. It had always made her determined to do better then right. Better than 100%.

And so, when she rose up from her bed and got dressed she hadn't yet thought of the kissing. In fact, she didn't come to think of it until she saw him waiting outside the laboratory door, where they had agreed to meet. As she saw him, leaning against the doors not yet to discover her, she panicked slightly and blushed. She stepped out so that she disappeared in the shadows (a trait she had found much easier to do since she'd been turned), and watched him. He looked the same as ever, dressed in black and with his white hair seeming even whiter against it. His posture was restless and impatient, and when she couldn't read anything else of him than that, she approached him again. When she came into his sight, he arched an eyebrow at her and sighed.

"You're late", he snarled and she felt herself blush again.

"Sorry", she answered as they opened the door. "I was just nervous."

Which was totally true.

They looked down their cauldron, and it looked perfect. Hermione read through the instructions for the 70th time as Draco stirred the last stirrings required. They watched the liquid, as it turned even more see-through.

"Right", she mumbled and grabbed the knife that lay amongst all the other tools they had collected (most of them fully functional from the laboratories).

The last ingredient was a few droplets of her own blood. She stiffened as she pulled the knife over her thump, and held it over a cauldron. It was a good thing only a few drops were needed, because in front of their eyes, the small cut closed itself and healed completely. Hermione retrieved her hand and observed the area where there should have been an open cut, but there was not even a scar. She turned her hand over and flexed it.

"That's kind of creepy", she said but she couldn't help but chuckle anyway. She looked up to see Draco leaning over the cauldron, and she followed his gaze just in time to see it change from a light red to completely transparent.

"It's done", he said and looked up at her. She nodded and he filled a medium sized glass bottle with the liquid that now looked like water.

"Drink all of it. And it says it might hurt a little, just so you know", he continued as he handed her the bottle, their fingers brushing in the process. She nodded again and lifted the bottle to her lips almost instantly. It took two big gulps to empty the bottle of liquid that tasted nearly nothing. She put the glass bottle warily back at the table, waiting for something to happen. She could feel the potion drip down her stomach before it spread through the rest of her body parts, and when it reached her heart, that's when it started to hurt.

She gasped suddenly as her heart took what felt like her first heartbeat in months. Just seconds later, several points in her mirrored the beat with equal pain, only now multiplied with about seven, and she swallowed a whimper. Her fingers bore deep into the table where she had clutched it, but she would not give in. As fast as the pain had come, it disappeared, and she gasped for air, her eyes widening in surprise as she did.

Draco was watching her with a deeply concerned look, but he hadn't touched her yet.

"Did it work?" was the first thing out of his mouth as she seemed to calm down, not thinking of that taking heavy breaths wasn't something Hermione had done lately.

"I'm breathing!", she managed to answer between breaths, and pointed towards her mouth. "I'm breathing."

Draco looked like he didn't quite understood what was so remarkable.

"You haven't been breathing… at all, before?"

He knew she hadn't breathed like he did, but he had thought she just did it… slower, or not as often. Not that she didn't do it at all.

She shook her head and sat down, overwhelmed by the way the air tasted and smelled in her mouth and nose.

"I haven't. I wonder what it means?" she asked as she started to focus again. He shrudded.

"Maybe the magic we just woke up needs it. It's the living part of you, after all."

Her eyes widened even more at his words, she had completely forgotten what the potion had been made to do. Within a second, she closed her eyes and disappeared from the chair with a loud 'pop'. In the same moment, she emerged back in through the doors, a wide smile on her face.

"It works! And I'm breathing!" she said as she approached Draco and the desk again.

"Do you realise what this potion might do?" she continued with a look of realisation on her face. He frowned and looked back at the cauldron, which was still more than half full.

"It might awaken the magic in squibs. Muggle children with wizard-ancestors… Anyone with a trace of magic inside of them."

They stood in silence for a while.

"We shouldn't tell people about this", she mumbled after a while. Draco, whose thought apparently had not been thinking what Hermione had been thinking, looked up at her with another frown.

"What?"

"It would disturb the balance of nature. People are supposed to be what they're born to… in terms of magic. Besides, if everyone with just an ounce of magic inside would drink this, the world would be overflowing with wizards and witches. There is not enough capacity for that."

"But…"

"And even those who are fully magical would want to drink it too, that would make people who are not cut out to be that powerful… that powerful. Everyone would go crazy."


	26. Chapter 26

Hermione was supposed to drink one bottle of the remaining potion for the following three or four days, so they bottled it and cleaned the cauldron. When Draco went to put it back in the corner where they had taken it, Hermione stood waiting for him with an expectant smile.

"I want to try everything", she said and Draco suddenly realised why she'd seemed so eager to clean up.

"Of course", he answered, infected by her broad smile (really, not many people smiled that honestly at him), and so when she offered him her hand, he took it after only a moment of hesitance. He felt the familiar tug of apparation and suddenly found himself in a room he had never been in before.

"Is this your room?" he asked when she let go of him and started rummaging around in a bedside table. She mumbled affirmative as he looked around. It was smaller than his, a big bed taking up most of the space. The wallpaper looked old and worn, in front of the two windows hung thick, dark curtains, and in a corner stood an old desk covered in books. On the floor lay and old rug and the wardrobe looked as if it hadn't been touched for years (even though he guessed it had, because Hermione's clothes changed every other night), but what caught his eyes more than anything was the coffin that stood pushed aside in the darkest corner of the room.

"Is that a coffin?"

Hermione, who had now found whatever she'd been looking for, approached him again, looking uncomfortably down at the coffin, too.

"Yes. Carl said I should have it so I can't get rid of it. But I sleep in the bed", she explained. Draco looked back at her with a look of disbelief.

"You really sleep in coffins?" he asked again. It was yet another fact he'd always had a hard time believing about vampires. Why the hell would someone who'll live forever choose to sleep in a coffin? Hermione sighed a bit irritated.

"They do. Not me."

And with that, she entwined their hands again and disapparated.

"What were you getting?" Draco asked as they reappeared in his own room. Hermione held up her wand and waved it a bit with a meaningful look.

"Why don't you just keep it on you?" he continued and she sighed and sat down in his chair.

"I know I should, but I keep forgetting. I put it away once, and then it's lost. Out of my head."

"Then you shouldn't put it away."

"Are you saying I should sleep with it?" she chuckled and gave him a look that dared him to say yes.

"Yes", he answered, not because he meant it, but because she asked for it.

Hermione spent the following hour trying out all the spells she knew she hadn't been able to do before. Draco was forced into being guinea pig once in a while, but could spend most of the hour in his chair with a book in his lap but not really reading.

Watching Hermione do all kinds of spells and charms (some of them he didn't even know how to do himself) was spectacular. There was no mistaken she hadn't earned the title of being the brightest witch of her age, giving Draco a broad display of everything she knew like she was taking some kind of test.

The highlight of the hour was probably when she produced a Patronus, and a silver otter emerged from her wand. Draco had looked up the moment he had heard which spell it was, and suddenly the otter was dancing around the room until it stopped with its hands against his chair, watching him with its head tilted and eyes that seemed to see right through him. Draco couldn't help but raise a hand as if to pet it, even though he didn't know if you could even touch a Patronus. The otter, on the other hand, read his movements and met up with his hand, rubbing it fondly before jumping back to Hermione to disappear.

Their eyes locked, both full of wonder and surprise.

"It's never done that before", Hermione said after a short while, frowning slightly.

"What's yours?" she continued and lowered her wand, apparently ready to take a break.

"A white hawk", he answered and rested his head in one of his hands. "Although I can't make it that good."

She smiled weakly.

"Well, it doesn't matter much now anyway, does it? It's not like the Dementors run loose anymore."

They fell silent. Hermione seemed to be finished trying out her magic and it was probably about time, because Draco was growing tired.

"I think I have a solution regarding Olle, by the way", Hermione said after she had snuck over to the window and checking the weather outside. Draco looked up at her with newfound interest.

"Yeah?"

She nodded with a pleased smile.

"There are just a few things I have to look up first. I'll tell you when it's time", she answered, standing restless on her spot as if she felt like leaving but didn't want to just yet. He rose from his chair and grinned when he stopped far in her personal space, her brown eyes staring up at him.

It was a good thing she always stayed until he was too tired to think properly, otherwise they would never have kissed. But when all he could think of was how she looked at him and smiled at him and seemed to actually, honestly _want_ things from him without any ulterior motive, he couldn't help it. Besides, she was too pretty and her lips seemed to practically scream for his.

And so he didn't stop himself when he leaned closer, caught her cheeks in his hands, and kissed her.

He'd never kissed anyone like that. Never kissed anyone he was supposed to do nothing with, the least kissing. Never kissed anyone that stood up on her toes to meet up with him. Never kissed anyone that held her hands so softly on his hips yet on the same time gripping hard, as if she wanted the moment never to end yet on the same time fuck him breathless.

It turned him on more than Hermione ever should do.


	27. Chapter 27

It was a long and sweet kiss. No tongues, no groping, just plain kissing. Hermione thought she could cry of happiness and sadness on the same time when she had to pull back to breath. She felt herself stepping down on her feet, unaware that she had stood on her toes even if Draco wasn't _that_ much taller than her. She smiled weakly when she noticed that they were sharing air, and she looked back in his moon-like eyes.

How did she end up like this?

How did she end up with a heart that didn't beat but felt like it would jump out of her throat whenever Draco was close enough she could feel his heat?

How did she end up in a country she had never visited, far away from everyone she loved and missed and cared about, accompanied by the one person she thought she would never again give a shit about?

How did she end up treasuring his presence?

How did she end up wanting his kisses?

How did she end up wanting way more than that?

She couldn't tell if it was right or wrong.

"If everything goes smoothly we might be able to see him tomorrow night already", she suddenly said, her thoughts brought back to what she'd been talking about earlier.

"That'd be nice", he responded and nodded.

"Yes.. Well. Good night", she mumbled, dared to steal a hasty kiss from him, and he didn't seem to mind. She retreated for the night with the sound of their lips meeting echoing in her head.

She stood outside of his door longer than she intended to, confused over what the hell the two of them were doing. More than once she lost against herself convincing her it was all bad ideas, even only hanging out with him.

Then she shook her head, decided not to think about it, and went to her own room. She would need to get up early to have the time to do all the preparations needed for meeting Olle.

The following morning was as awkward as the previous had been for Draco. It was obvious his parents had mixed feeling about finding out Hermione spent time in his room late at night, but so far they had said nothing about it. If Draco would guess, his mother was dying to ask, but his father had asked her not to. So far, he had not had any private meetings with his mother only, so he had been spared the questions. But he knew it wouldn't last for that much longer.

"Would you like to go down to the lake with me later today, Draco?" his mother asked when they were finishing up breakfast.

Normally, he wouldn't say no. He enjoyed the lake, he enjoyed his mother, and it was lovely weather outside. He didn't have any good reason to neglect.

"Sure", he replied and earned a fond smile in return.

Two hours later, they were walking in a slow pace through the woods down to the lake, Sigge, the dog, accompanying them. It was so hot outside Draco felt too dressed in his dress shirt and dress trousers only. His mother, smartly, was dressed in all white and he had smiled at the sight. Narcissa rarely dressed in white, and Draco thought she looked fantastic whenever she did.

"Aren't you hot, my dear? Button loose and take you shoes off!" his mother insisted and he happily obliged. It wasn't like anybody would see anyway. So he stopped to take his shoes of (the path to the lake was made of neat, smooth rocks), rolled up the legs of his pants, and unbuttoned the top and bottom buttons of his shirts, as well as the ones at his wrist, rolling up the sleeves as well.

Narcissa laughed at the sight.

"That's summer for you, alright. Oh, we should have brought picnic."

And Draco couldn't help but smile at her. It'd been a long time since his mother had acted like her old self, like the mother he remembered from his childhood. But both she and his father seemed to slowly recover to what they once had been.

They reached the lake and they sat down on the small fishing bathing bridge, dipping their feet in the cool water. Sigge continued to explore the surroundings for a while before settling between them, breathing heavily in the sun.

They sat like that for a while in silence, enjoying the sun, the small breeze that came from out the lake, and the cooling water around their feet.

"Imagine not being able to enjoy this", his mother said, her face tilted up the sky, eyes closed. He glanced at her. "We should treasure it more than we do", she continued and he looked back up in the sky before humming in agreement.

"How is the girl doing?"

When he glanced at his mother again, she was watching him eagerly.

"Good. She's doing good", he answered a little uncomfortably. She nodded and smiled.

"What do you do together?"

He considered his answer for a while.

"We've researched Estelle in general. We found a notebook of hers filled with potions and spells, and we've… learnt it. We've restored Hermione's magic."

"When did you do that?"

"Restore her magic? Yesterday."

His mother nodded again and Draco had a pretty good guess what her next request would be.

"Tell me more."

He sighed entertainingly. Where to start?

"Estelle seemed to live quite the quiet life when she lived here. She spent time with Carl and the others… read a lot. Created and mastered a lot of potions and spells and charms that made it possible for her to have children, for example. She died in the… 1870's. She looks almost identical with Granger…" (his mother made an 'oh really'-face), "but we don't know why."

He paused for a moment.

"We know a man named Olle used to live in that house over there... and that there's a secret tunnel under the lake from the mansion to it. Olle quit twenty years ago when he experienced something that made him believe in vampires…" (they shared a meaning look), "and we're going to see him tonight actually, I think. We've met him in the towns pub once before. If I'm going to guess… I think Peter has something to do with it."

Another pause.

"We've made a potion this past week, that's what restored Granger's magic. Apart from that we've been practising Estelle's spells. They're really old-fashioned and hard to do."

He silenced and his mother seemed to process it all with a slight frown on her forehead.

"And we're trying to figure out who made her vampire, of course. We've managed to find out that the one who turned Estelle was Eldric the Mad but he's dead since long."

Narcissa suddenly laughed silently.

"Your summer isn't boring, is it?"


	28. Chapter 28

They stayed by the lake for several hours, calling for Cranky when they started to get hungry. Draco fell asleep on the bridge for a while, Sigge lying with his head on his stomach, wetting Draco's clothes down since the dog kept going in the water every now and then. His mother sat beside them reading a book and when Draco woke up he realised he was going to get tanned. Not much (he skin didn't seem capable of that), but still a little.

There never seemed reason to go back. If they ever needed anything, or got bored, Cranky would get them whatever they needed. A book, a bottle of lemonade, a sandwich… and so when the air started to cool off a little in the afternoon, they were still pleasantly seated by the lake. Draco sat up a bit when Sigge suddenly rose up and ran away from him, only to see that his father was approaching them.

"How are you doing?" he asked when he stopped next to where Narcissa sat, who smiled and held her hand up for him.

"Absolutely terrific", she said and Lucius took her hand. Draco lay back down and closed his eyes. He only had a short time before his father would ask them to head back to the mansion for whatever reason… probably dinner.

"It's time for dinner."

There it was.

To Draco's surprise, the clock was almost six o'clock when they returned to the mansion. That meant they had stayed by the lake and done nothing for more than 5 hours. On the other hand, his mother seemed as surprised as him. They had dinner and they ended up sitting by the dinner table for a long time after they had finished eating, talking about whatever they had not talked about these past days. Lucius was the only of them to read the Daily Prophet at the moment and he enjoyed telling his family what kind of silly things has happened in England since they had left. An unqualified person getting a good job in the ministry (which seemed to happen a lot lately, according to Lucius), someone discovering something that was already discovered but simply not given attention… anything.

And so it came that it was later than usual when Draco closed the doors to his room for the night. He was just the teensiest bit tipsy after drinking wine and he had just lain down for a moment of rest when it knocked.

"Yes", he said out loud, and Hermione stepped in.

"You allright?" she asked when she noticed him. He nodded and sat up.

"Yes. It's just been a long and warm day", he sighed and looked up at her. "You're wearing a dress."

She laughed for half of a second before pretending to be offended by the tone of surprise in his voice.

"Congratulations on your eyes. Are you ready to go?" she said and raised the umbrella she held in her hand. "Thunder's coming in", she explained when he frowned at it.

And so they left.

"What've you been doing today?" Hermione asked as they walked side by side in the woods. "I saw you and your parents coming in around dinner-time."

"Mother and I spent the day by the lake", he answered even though she had never before asked him about his days. She nodded absently at his explanation, seeming only to listen with half an ear.

"Your mother was… pretty. In white."

Draco had to clear his throat.

"Yes, she was. She rarely wears it though."

Hermione seemed to suddenly come back to the conversion and nodded.

"Of course, it looks very handsome for light people like you and your family to wear black, but white… it looked pure."

It was Draco's turn to get lost in thought. Pure was a very good word to describe it, actually. His mother, with her white hair and her pale skin in a white dress, with Sigge, the white dog, dancing around her feet. That was how his mother was supposed to be.

Before he knew it, they seemed to have arrived at the bar, the rain luring in the over the treetops.

"How are we going to do this anyway? He doesn't know English."

"You'll see", was all the answer he got as they entered the pub.

"Oh, are you lovelies back? I was just wondering if we'd see you again", Marie, the bar-lady, greeted them. "What can I get you tonight?"

Hermione, who had been the first of them to approach the bar, suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"Just a beer for me please", she said sternly.

"Me too", Draco nodded as he realised what was wrong. Marie handed them their beer with a polite smile before leaving them alone, unsettled by the bar.

"There he is", Hermione said and nodded towards one of the booths further down. In it sat Olle, peering out the window and with a single glass of whiskey in his hand. He looked up when they suddenly sat down in front of him, and his frown was matching Draco's when he noticed she was holding her wand.

"Hi Olle", Hermione then said with the politest smile Draco had ever seen and Olle's eyebrows seemed to reach his hairline.

"You're speaking Swedish now?" he said in a language that was clearly English in Draco's ears.

"Yes, well, with a little help", Hermione continued and Draco suddenly understood. It was a translation charm. Olle suddenly seemed to shine up like the sun.

"Well, good for you. Swedish is a very beautiful language; I've heard it's called one of the most melodic one's in the world", the man babbled and Draco couldn't help but sigh internally.

"Eh, mr…"

"Holm."

"Mr. Holm, we wanted to talk to you about when you used to work at the mansion…"

The old mans expressions suddenly darkened and he stopped smiling.

"We know you think you saw… vampires there", Hermione continued but the man didn't seem to budge. They fell silent for a while, uncertain of what to say while the old man seemed to figure our what they really wanted.

"How much do you know?" he suddenly asked. Hermione and Draco frowned at him in unison.

"We know… a lot, mr Holm. But we don't know what happened when you got fired. We wish to know."

But Olle shook his head and leaned closer.

"No, I mean, what do you know… about stuff? About people? About creatures?"

It suddenly seemed to dawn on Hermione. It didn't for Draco and it was insanely irritating.

"Oh", she said. "Oh, we know. We know about… er, everything."

Olle nodded and seemed to decide that it was enough of an answer. He leaned back and sipped at his drink.

"Tell us what happened."

"Well, there were vampires. And witches."


	29. Chapter 29

And then the old man started telling them of how his life in the small cottage had went from a calm family home in his childhood to a place where he couldn't stop his masters from trespassing. He spoke a lot but somehow said little anyway, so it took his probably more than half an hour and two glasses of whiskey to tell them everything.

"As a child, I never knew anything of paranormal creatures. Sure, my mother always told me not to get lost in the deep woods or the trolls would get you. Neither should I mess with the oldest women in town too much, or they'd make sure I lay sleepless at night. But I thought it to be fairytales only", Olle started with a thoughtful look out the window.

"Then, of course, my parents died. A couple of years after that until anything happened. I took care of the gardens and the woods; I never saw much of Rufus, the man in charge of the mansion at the time, or any kind of family of his. But I was used to that, that's how they always had been. Strange, sure. But as long as I got my pay check every month, who was I to bother?"

It didn't take long for Draco's thoughts to wander. He still listened, but he just couldn't keep focused. He observed the old man in front of him. A muggle. His skin was sunburnt and rough and his gaze was surprisingly steady in spite of the amount alcohol he had already drunken. His clothes were seemed to be in the same state as the man itself, old, worn and rough. On the man's balding head he had an old peaked cap, which made his huge ears stand out even more. The man's hands though, were the one of the biggest pair of hands Draco had ever seen. The seemed to be at least double as big as they were supposed to be, and the fingers were crooked and yet again, rough.

His gaze wandered from the old man to Hermione and the difference between them was outstanding. She was resting her head in one of her hands and was watching the old man intently as she spoke. Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes seemed to be seeing nothing but the man sitting in front of her. Her curls flowed down her shoulders and her back and Draco couldn't help but frown slightly at it. It was nothing like the bushy nest she had had when they were young. He admitted she had seemed to obtain some power over it in their later years of Hogwarts, but it had never looked like it did now. His eyes wandered along the dark blue dress she was wearing and stopped at the point where she had pulled her leg up on the seat, making the dress expose even more of her thigh then normally. Her pale legs looked skinnier than he remembered them, but on the other hand – he had never seen them as naked as they were now. Truth be told, it wasn't just her legs that looked skinnier. He had always remembered her to be quite steady. Not chubby in any way, but well built and even a bit muscular. Not as weak and tender as she looked now. Everything about her now was slender, pale and… vulnerable, which strongly opposed everything he knew about her strength. When his eyes reached her face again, she was looking at him with an arched eyebrow, silently questioning his actions. He took a deep breath and forced himself to refocus on the talking old man. He didn't seem to have missed much of what he'd said.

"When Peter moved in, everything changed. At first, I didn't notice much. But one day the man appeared on my doorstep asking me to invite him in. And since my parents raised me to be a polite man, especially towards my bosses, I of course invited him in. Now, I can see that was probably my biggest mistake."

Draco frowned at this and turned to Hermione with a questionable look."

"Vampires have to be invited into a house inhabited by a living human being", she explained in a rushed voice and motioned for Olle to carry on.

"Yes. That's what I thought. Of course, I didn't know that then. I didn't even know Peter was a vampire. I only though he was an incredibly creepy being. But he got a lot creepier."

Draco, again, redirected his focus towards the old man. He seemed to finally get somewhere.

"The man started using my house as some sort of passage way to the mansion. Every other month he would show up at my door with a woman, and she never seemed that willingly to follow. Somehow, I couldn't do anything about. I couldn't talk about it, or think about it. Only now, afterwards, have I been able to realise that what happened wasn't normal. Sometimes, a third woman would accompany them, completely on her own accord it seemed, but she never needed to be invited. Neither did the other women. During the years, I lost count of how many women Peter brought with him. In the beginning they were all of different ages, but after a while they seemed to only get younger and younger. Sometimes I caught Peter coming from the mansion through the tunnel, but he never brought a woman with him out. I don't know what happened with them. But I never saw them more than once."

Suddenly, Hermione interrupted him.

"How did the third woman look?"

"She was probably in her forties. Dirty blond, long hair. Always wore odd clothes. Long capes and things like that."

Draco could tell that Hermione, just like he, knew who that could be. Elsa.

"Anyway… one day everything went straight out of the window. Peter arrived at my house with another woman, but she managed to escape. She screamed for help when she saw me and I just… I just had to help her. That was the night I realised what Peter was. And what the women must have been. They… started to fight. I got hit, really bad."

Olle silenced and stared down his glass of whiskey.

"In the end, she didn't survive. I was lucky to stay alive, I think. Peter was furious, and…"

"…and?" Hermione insisted when the man silenced for a second time.

"He was hurt. I have the woman to thank for my life. If she hadn't hurt him so bad, he'd killed me too. I saw it in his eyes. They were… predatory. The day after, you know, he invited me to the house and showed me around. That was the most scary thing I've ever experienced. He showed me how many lived in the house, and by God, was it many. They could have slaughtered me at the spot if they wanted, no question about it. But they let me go. Since then I've tried to warn the town but no one believes me. Not that I blame them. I wouldn't believe me either. Whatever Peter wished to achieve with letting me go, I sure managed to get everyone even more scared of the old mansion. It was rumoured to be haunted when I was young, and now all the tales I'm telling… I suppose that's what he wanted."


	30. Chapter 30

When Olle had told them everything he knew about Peter and the mansion, he politely bid good-bye and left the bar with a smiling nod to Marie. Hermione and Draco were now the only two left in the bar and the bad weather was starting to really threaten outside. Hermione seemed deep in thought.

"Do you think we can assume that Elsa was a witch before she was turned vampire?" she asked and looked up at Draco, still supporting her head in one of her hands.

"I think that's safe to assume, yes", he shrugged. "That means she can't have been a vampire for very long."

"Indeed. But she's so close to Carl."

"Isn't it just because she's close to Peter? Aren't they… eh, mates?"

Hermione nodded absently.

"What do you think they did to all those witches?"

Draco shook his shoulders yet again and leaned back in the seat with a tired sigh.

"Perhaps we should head back. The storm is going to start any minute", Hermione continued with a concerned look out the window. It was by now pitch black outside and thunder could be heard in the distance. It had started raining, but not very heavily.

They got up and Hermione gave Marie a piece of paper that Draco had learnt to be a little larger value of Muggle money. After that, she turned to him with a shy smile and headed for the entrance. As they opened the doors, she turned the umbrella up and motioned for Draco to step closer so that he, too, was guarded from the rain.

"Why can't we just apparate?" he asked a little irritated as they started walking.

"Not here. We could still be seen."

He couldn't help but groan at her stubbornness. It was two am in the morning; it was a ridiculously small chance they would be seen.

Hermione, on the other hand, ignored his responce and curled an arm around his so that the umbrella ended up perfectly centred over them. They walked in silence, both in deep thought. What Olle had told them had answered some questions and provoked others. In the end, they walked all of the distance between the little town and the mansion, even if by the time they reached it, the storm above them reached it full potential. They were snapped out of their thoughts as the sky flashed before them, quickly followed by a crackling noise that, to Hermione, sounded as if it would break her eardrums. She quickly brought her hands up and stiffed her fingers in her ears.

"Let's get inside", she shouted to Draco, because the rain and the thunder was now numbing all other sounds. He nodded and together they ran over the courtyard towards the big house, offering them shelter. As they reached the front doors, they hurriedly stepped inside and Hermione put the umbrella down. As they took a moment to breath out, Draco couldn't help but stifle a yawn. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Let's just go to bed", Hermione chuckled, even if she herself didn't seem a tad bit tired. "We'll talk tomorrow. Then we've had time to think, too."

He couldn't help but agree that it was probably the best idea.

"Deal", he said and she nodded in agreement. When she made a move to leave, though, he reached after her and stopped her with a hand on her upper arm. He stepped closer as he with his hand turned her over, and then let his hand fall along her arm, sending her shivers down her spine, before grasping her hand. Her eyes fell to their hands and then met his eyes, full of surprise and uncertainty.

And then Draco connected their lips. The kiss only lasted for seconds but felt like years to Hermione. She swam in the feeling she got from his lips, from his fingers gripping hers, from his other hand ghosting over her chin. When he broke away, she released an uneven breath and saw Draco smirking down at her with tired eyes.

"Good night."

And then he left, with Hermione frozen on her spot, staring after him. When he had disappeared around a corner, she decided to pull herself together and turned on the spot towards her own bedroom. It was only seconds until she was lost in thoughts again, only this time her questions about Peter were mixed with questions regarding Draco.

When she reached her bedroom, she suddenly stopped. Her gaze wandered over the big door that led to her room, because she was pretty sure she had left it closed. Very sure, actually. But here it stood, ajar.

She cautiously approached the door and opened it. Before she entered the room though, she peeked inside and thanked herself that she, for once, had her wand on her. With it in a firm grip, he stepped inside and let the door stay ajar behind her. If she would need to run, leaving it open would be the easiest way to do it. She searched the room that lay in complete darkness, and was only able to realise that somebody else was in there because she smelled him.

"Peter", she said between gritted teeth and she stiffened. There was suddenly movement made in the corner of her room, and she was able to see him sitting on her coffin.

"Hermione", he replied, his voice disturbingly friendly and polite. "How very nice to see you."

She narrowed her eyes at him and dared another step in the room.

"What do you want?" she asked, and she could see his pretended hurt play over his face as he rose up.

"So hostile. You know, I was just passing by the other minute and thought, why not pay a perfectly friendly visit? It's not like you get them often, is it?"

He stepped even closer to her with that perfectly friendly smile of his. His eyes, on the other hand, were staring at her with disturbing interest. His irises were thin and bright and his pupils huge, as if ready to charge at her at any minute.


	31. Chapter 31

Hermione was conflicted of how to react. Should she let Peter talk or should she just curse him right out of the window immediately? Olle had just told them what they needed to know about Peter – he was not to be trusted. He obviously had been up to something. But did whatever he had done twenty years ago give her the right to go offensive before he even opened his mouth?

She glared at him. The most disturbing thing with Peter was his good looks. The man practically screamed friendliness at you. The only thing giving him away was his stares, his intense and unsettling stares that seemed to not belong to the rest of his pleasant features. And that insanely charming and polite smile he had plastered on at the very moment, together with his sweet scent, well, everything conflicted so bad with what she had just been told about him.

"What do you want?" she repeated and she could see the smile drop from Peters face for just a second. His gaze fell to her wand.

"As I said, I just wanted to check in on you. I understand you've gotten your magic back, completely?" he conversed and sat down lazily in her desk chair, but his stern eyes found hers again and demanded an answer out of her.

"How do you know that?" she asked, well aware that her answer confirmed his question. Peter raised his eyebrows at her and smiled.

"Really? How I know? Shouldn't you know by now that nothing in this house goes unnoticed? _Unheard_?"

Peter rose up from the chair again and approached her. Hermione took an uncomfortable step back when she felt his scent reaching her like a wind in the storm.

"What _I_ want to know, though… Is how you did it?"

Hermione's mouth stiffened into a thin line and she glared at him. For a second, she was glad that Estelle's small notebook had been left behind in Draco's room. If it had been in her room, she guessed she would not be facing Peter but simply lost it already.

"You're not going to tell me?" Peter asked after a while, his voice somehow both entertained and pissed off at the same time. He tilted his head and his eyes, again, glimmered white.

"I'll tell you something you might not know about vampires, dear Hermione."

She frowned at him and he laughed.

"Some of us require special… skills, you could call it, when we're turned. Eva, for example, can actually turn into a bat… quite handy, you have to admit."

Hermione's mind went haywire. She had never read anything about vampires gaining special skills. Sure, she had seen it in a movie or two when she was younger, but anything like that had never been confirmed by anyone. She stared at him and considered just not letting him continue, to just force him to leave. It would probably not be that hard to do, and since Peter knew of her magic, he probably knew it too. But she couldn't help but be curious.

"Well, we both know _yours_ already… do you want to know mine?"

Before she had the time to react to what he had said, she felt him plunge at her brain. For a second, she was so surprised he almost broke her walls, but she quickly recovered. The war had forced her to become a strong Occlumens, and not many had back then been able to enter her mind. But Peter was not just an ordinary enemy.

_He can read minds_, was all she could think while she could feel him rip at her mental wards, and she had to concentrate hard to not let him succeed. Somehow, though, she was able to hold him off even if he was stronger than any other that had tried to invade her brain. When he retrieved, she gasped loudly and he glared deadly at her again. Her breath hitched in her throat as he stared at her, waiting for his next move. But it never came. Instead, he gave her a wide smile and she felt as the smallest person on earth. The smile was even scarier that his glares.

"I see", was all he said, and then she felt the gust of wind that told her he had vanished out of the room.

For a while, all Hermione could do was stand rooted on the spot and breath. Then she went over and closed her bedroom door with a suspicious look down the hallway. She suddenly felt not as comfortable in her own room anymore, knowing any other vampire could wander in however they wanted when she was not there. Maybe she should make it a habit to look her door. And so she turned and waved her wand at the door handle, locking it with a simple spell. Then she approached her desk and went through all the papers that lay there, and noticed with a relieved sigh that nothing was missing. None of the books she had borrowed from the library were missing as well, so it seemed as if Peter really had looked through her things, he had found nothing of interest. She frowned at that. Many of her notes were about Estelle and the books certainly not your average books. She suddenly wondered if Peter had been a muggle or wizard before he had been turned.

The fact that he could read mind was unnerving. She wondered how she had managed to hold him back at all, because she really shouldn't. She frowned and sat down in her bed. Her gaze went to her bedside drawer where the small vials of potion stood. Maybe the potion gave her back more than she had lost? She yawned and shook her head. Her mind was spinning with new information and questions. While just 15 minutes ago she had wondered about Olle's information and Draco's actions, it now involved Peter's as well. Maybe she should just go to bed and sleep. It was, after all, the best way of handling new information.


	32. Chapter 32

Narcissa Malfoy had always had trouble sleeping. Since the Second War with the Dark Lord, her inability to sleep through the night had only intensified. And so, it was no surprise when she silently woke up only minutes after midnight. She turned in her bed and deciphered the contours of her husband sleeping on the other side. She smiled faintly. The time he had spent in Azkaban a few years ago had been a nightmare to her, and she thanked the heavens they had all managed to get out of the War alive. After a while, she sat up and reached for her wand. She knew it was no use to try and fall asleep again. So she got up from the bed, walked around it to get her night robe. She stopped and stroked Lucius arm gently, he stirred in his sleep but didn't wake. Ironically, her husband was the heaviest sleeper she had ever met. She pulled her night robe neatly around herself and approached one of the windows. Through it, she had a good view of the front courtyard and the storm that was soon to be raging over it. She sat down in the windowsill for a while and observed the sky. Weather had always fascinated her. It could be so bright and sunny in one moment, and in the next explode in water and electricity. And so, she spend a good half an hour in the windowsill, observing the clouds, how they rain started to fall and even how it started to silently threaten with thunder. In the end, she tired of it and rose up again. She always had trouble making time wander in this house. In the Malfoy Mansion she had a billion different things to do if she couldn't sleep. Here, she wasn't as comfortable. Sure, she loved the house and spending the summers there, but it just wasn't like home. The first time Lucius had brought her here she had been uncomfortable with the fact that they shared it with vampires. It had taken her many years to realise that they weren't interested in them. She had even developed a kind of familiar relation with Carl, and she looked at him as some sort of grandfather.

With a last look at her husband she stepped out of their room. She silently skidded down the hallway and stopped in front of Draco's room. She leaned against his doors and tried to hear if he was still awake, if that girl was accompanying him… But it was silent. She figured he probably had gone to bed already. With a content smile she continued down the hallway. She didn't know what to think of the girl, but most of the time she decidedly just not thought of who she really was. Of course, she couldn't help herself being curious about their relation, but whenever she had asked Draco about it, it had never seemed to be anything more than friendly, if even that. Narcissa found herself tied between wanting them to be more or not. After all, she couldn't just forget what the girl was.

Narcissa spent another half an hour in the library, silently looking through the books. She had read some of them, but not nearly as many as her husband or her son. It wasn't that she didn't like reading, she did, they just did it even more. After a while, she had picked two books that she decided to bring back to her room. With another look out the window, she decided to try and get to sleep.

She was on her way back when she heard the front doors open and close. She hurriedly hid behind a wall as she wondered who it was. Considering the time of the hour, most likely a vampire.

"Let's just go to bed", she heard and she immediately recognized the voice. "We'll talk tomorrow. Then we've had time to think, too."

"Deal."

Narcissa hitched a surprised breath as she recognized that voice, too. She suddenly became irritated and tensed up. Really, it was quite late into the night and it was storming. What the hell had they been doing outdoors?

With a determined scowl on her face, she turned around the corner. Immediately, she froze on the spot.

In front of her, in the end of her hallway, her son was kissing the girl. There was no mistaking it. Hermione stood with her arms relaxed along her sides; Draco was the one with his hand on her cheek and leaning down to kiss her.

Narcissa stood flabbergasted as the two younger adults ended the kiss and separated. She absent mindedly stepped back around the corner as they did.

So much for nothing more than friendly.

She didn't know how to react. Sure, she was happy that her son seemed to like anyone. He had spent too much time on his own lately. If he didn't find a girl of his own, Narcissa and Lucius would soon need to find one for him. And to be honest, Narcissa would rather if they didn't have to.

On the other hand, the girl was a vampire. She was a _muggleborn_. Even if they were supposed not to think like that anymore, after the war, Narcissa had grown up with these types of thoughts. Her son being with a muggleborn was of course something she didn't wish. Add the fact that she's technically dead and supposed to go on a diet based on human blood…

On the other hand, she could never kill Draco. She couldn't turn him. So her being a vampire wasn't in that way threatening to them. She also knew that vampires with good self-control managed to very well spend their life in close contact with humans. But the girl had just been turned and that's when they were the most unpredictable.

With her mind swirling with thoughts, she headed for her bedroom. When she entered it, she put the books away and slid down in the bed next to her husband.

Should she tell him?


	33. Chapter 33

When Draco woke up the following morning he didn't expect the day to be any different than previous. Even though his head had been spinning with thoughts when he went to bed, he had fallen asleep quite immediately and slept like a rock. So when he headed of for breakfast he felt rested, relaxed and content. He sat down at the table across his parents and helped himself to some coffee and pancakes while greeting them good morning. It took him several minutes to realise that his mother was watching him with a look that wasn't her regular "good-morning-how-nice-to-see-you"-look. His father, on the other hand, acted just like always, reading the paper. When he glanced back at his mother, she raised her eyebrows at him in a questioning manner. Draco, in return, frowned at her, surprised and uncertain of what to think of his mother's silent communication. He spent the rest of the breakfast uncomfortable and he hurried from the room when they had finished. He only needed to wait a few minutes in his room when his mother burst in the door.

She seemed unsure of what to say and Draco frowned at her again.

"I saw you", she eventually said and straightened up.

"What?" he asked and she seemed to force herself to calm down and talk to him sensibly.

"I saw you. Yesterday. When you got back from wherever you've been in that damn weather."

When Draco didn't respond, she continued.

"I saw you _kiss_", and Draco suddenly realised why she was behaving like she was. He couldn't help but chuckle.

"It's not funny, Draco! Don't you know what she _is_?" Narcissa continued with an annoyed frown that would have been a bit intimidating if Draco hadn't seen it so many times before. He sat down in his chair and nonchalantly shook his shoulders.

"Don't you care at all?" his mother persisted.

"What am I supposed to care about? She can't hurt me."

The look on Narcissa's face suddenly changed.

"She's _dead_, Draco. Even if she can't kill you, she can still hurt you. They're not to be trusted."

At this, Draco turned his chair around and grimaced. They're not to be trusted? Who was it that made them go here every other summer and live in a house full of them? It was certainly not he. Who was it that enjoyed drinking tea and _gossiping_ with one of them? Certainly not he. He could hear his mother sigh.

"Do you… like her?"

Draco didn't answer.

"Because if you do… if you _really_ do, then I won't tell Lucius. I won't… work against it. I want you to be happy, Draco, and I know you've been… private, since the war." She silenced for a moment. "Just tell me… is it real?"

Draco turned the chair again and met his mother gaze. He knew what he wanted to answer. He knew what he needed to answer. But was it true?

"Yes", he eventually stiffly answered and his mother nodded. Without saying anything else, she left. Draco stared at the door after her. He knew she would keep it their secret, but she had left him thinking, questioning, doubting.

He didn't know what he felt for Hermione. Even more disturbing though, he didn't know what she felt for him.

She was a vampire after all. Perhaps her behaviour was simply the temptation of flesh. He, literally, was a piece of flesh for her. She had been friendly to him, she had smiled to him, but was it really guarantee enough that she actually liked _him_?

He sighed and sank deeper into the chair. What was he thinking really? It was Hermione Granger, the know-it-all, the muggleborn, and the girl of the golden trio… Draco couldn't like her. Wouldn't like her. Shouldn't like her.

He did like her.

He couldn't deny that this had been the most interesting summer vacation he had ever had. He couldn't deny that he looked forward to see her at night, not necessarily because they accomplished things, but because she was simply there, willingly, with him. He couldn't deny that he was attracted to her, not only because she was supposed to be forbidden fruit, but because they way she moved or sat or leaned simply made him want to touch her. He couldn't deny that he seemed to forget who she was whenever they spent time together.

If anyone of his former Slytherin-friends would see him they would have laughed.

But they weren't there.

When night arrived, Draco's mood hadn't changed. When Hermione stepped inside his room, she could sense it, but she didn't ask. She, herself, was tense and hadn't slept well after the visit from Peter. It had freaked her out that he had showed up the very same night they had been told some of his story. She couldn't decipher if it was a coincidence or not. Peter could very well have been aware that they had been away to talk to Olle. After all, you couldn't say much without it being heard in the house. Hermione scolded herself for not realising this until now, and she shook her wand an extra time when she entered Draco's room, stopping whatever sounds from leaking out.

They didn't immediately start talking like they used too. Hermione sat down in Draco's bed with a thoughtful frown on her forehead, matching the one on Draco's. After a while, Hermione remembered what she was doing there.

"So", she started, and successfully brought Draco out of his thoughts. "Now we know what happened to Olle."

Draco nodded absently.

"The question is… does it really have _anything_ at all to do with anything else? Or are we just prying in personal issues?"

She fell silent and bit her lip.

"It feels like it's all connected… but I can't come up with how. Peter could simply be some kind of freak who liked to feast on witches especially. Elsa could have been his former lover, and he turned her too. End of story."


	34. Chapter 34

They were stuck. Olle's story had answered some of their questions, but now they had nowhere to continue to. Talking to Peter seemed well out of the question, so did any other vampire that might know anything.

"Maybe we should just drop it. Who are we to dip our noses in it anyway?" Hermione said.

"Then what do you suggest we do instead?"

"I don't know. We should continue practising Estelle's spells. That about the only thing we can do."

Draco sighed unenthusiastically. The spells, yes, of course. They couldn't do anything else, really, not without the rest of Estelle's notebooks.

"What?" Hermione asked daringly when she heard his sigh.

"You're even worse than McGonagall. Do that, do this, do it now. Don't you get tired of always doing things?"

She frowned at his smirk.

"What do you mean?"

"I _mean_…" he continued, rose up from his chair and approached her. "Don't you ever just relax?"

He stopped in front of her and crossed his arms, waiting for her reply. She looked up at him from where she sat in his bed and he could see her tense up.

"I do relax, thank you. I sleep like 20 hours a day."

He chuckled and leaned even close to her.

"I don't mean sleeping, Granger."

Her eyelashes fluttered as a prominent blush appeared on her cheeks. Draco couldn't stop his smirk from reappearing when he noticed, and stayed put for a little while longer, knowing it teased her.

"Why are you blushing?" he asked in a silent whisper, and it made Hermione flush even more. Her gaze flickered between his eyes as she seemed to consider her answer.

"Because…" she started and Draco felt her breath on his lips. "Because I like you."

Draco's eyes widened in surprise and he released a breath he didn't knew he had hold. Hermione's brown orbs observed him uncertainly.

"You alright?" she asked and Draco was brought back from his initial shock. Then he suddenly smiled and lifted his hands to her cheeks.

"Very much so", he answered and then he kissed her.

At first it was relatively innocent and sweet, but the moment Hermione opened her mouth for him, he couldn't restrict himself anymore. They explored each other mouths, and Draco climbed up in the bed so that he could follow when Hermione leaned down on her back. His head was spinning with her taste and scent and his free hand was gripping her waist. She let out a soft whimper when he left her mouth to carry on down her cheek and Draco smiled.

"What do you mean… 'you like me'?" he whispered as he placed kisses under her ear. "You like me… as a friend?"

She chuckled as his tongue found its way to her collarbones.

"No", she answered and there was a strange feeling in his stomach that wasn't just the ordinary ache of lust.

"No?"

One of her hands were tangled in his hair and it sent wonderful shivers down his neck.

"No", she repeated and she whimpered again as he suddenly nibbled her skin.

"Then do you like me… as an enemy?" he continued and she suddenly frowned.

"No", she answered, more certain and forceful than before.

He suddenly lifted himself up from her and positioned himself so that they were face to face. Her hands were on his hips and his were on either side of her head, holding him up. He placed a thoughtful frown on his face and faked uncertainty.

"Then what to you like me as?"

The smirk that formed on Hermione face was not was he had expected. He suddenly felt himself being turned over and pushed down on his back, with Hermione leaning over him like he had done over her just a few second ago. A shiver of anticipation mixed with slight fear ran down his spine.

"You tell me", she said and then she dived in for another deep kiss.

Draco knew that being the bottom one wasn't very dominant, but at the moment he couldn't care less. Hermione was strangling his hips and he knew she could feel that he was hard. Her hands were gripping his cheeks tightly and her tongue was dancing with his. His arms suddenly came alive and placed themselves on her hips, roaming against the fabric of her over sized dress shirt. The soft material disappeared under his hands and he suddenly felt her cold skin against his palms. On the same time Hermione's hands left his cheeks to tug at the buttons of his own shirt. She patiently unbuttoned them all and pulled his shirt open. As she did, her mouth found it's way from his mouth to his neck and she kissed and licked it slowly. She never, on the other hand, bit down even the slightest and Draco was a bit relieved for that.

Her kisses continued further down than his had. He gasped loudly when he felt her taking one of his nipples in her mouth. Her hands were sliding along his sides and how he wanted them to continue further down. Instead, Hermione leaned back up and kissed him on the mouth again, pressing on him, middle to middle, hips to hips, chest to chest.

It was Draco's turn to take command and he turned them over again, in the process completely pulling of his shirt. Hermione's eyes flickered over his chest and she smiled.  
>"I like you… like this", she said and her smile was completely infectious. With a matching smile, he kissed her again and unbuttoned her shirt with not the same patience as she had. Then he pulled it over her shoulders and looked down at her.<p>

She was so thin.

His gut was again filling with something that wasn't lust. It bothered him seeing her so thin, because he knew it was because of the war. She had never been thin before that. Then she'd been on the run and… how much food do you really eat when you're on the run?

Draco didn't know.

His hands gently brushed over her stomach, over her hips and over her breasts. Yes, her breasts, her breasts were amazing and when he unbuttoned her black bra, too, he couldn't help but groan.

"Nox", he whispered, and the lights in his room went out.

And when he felt Hermione arch her back to get closer to him, he knew that he was lost.

Completely and utterly lost in her.


	35. Chapter 35

When Hermione woke the next morning it took her a couple of moments to locate herself. But then she recognized the wall in front of her, the blanket that covered her and the arm that was sneaked around her naked waist. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes again.

She couldn't believe what they had done yesterday. She tried to convince herself they shouldn't have done what they had done, but the memory of how good it had felt overpowered any of her doubts.

She had slept with Draco Malfoy. She had slept with Draco Malfoy and it had been the best night of her life. She remembered the feeling of them being together and united and how it had felt a thousand times better than she had remembered sex to be.

She carefully turned around in the bed and was faced with Draco's sleeping form, and she had to smile. His hair lay as neatly on his head as if they never had had sex, as if he had never even slept, and she scowled it a little. Her own hair didn't fall like that even when she tried her hardest. His expression was relaxed and she could feel his breath tingle on her cheeks. She cuddled closer and his arm curled around her, adjusting to her new position and she slowly fell back asleep.

When Draco woke up he was met with a mass of brown hair against his face. When he looked down to see where the mass of hair came from, he found Hermione snuggled against him, her face against his neck and her hands on his torso. He frowned slightly as he realised he had his arm around her too.

The frown, however, disappeared when he remembered how they had ended up like that. A smug smile appeared on his lips instead, and he absent-mindedly stroked her back down to her lovely hips.

He inhaled and was met with the scent of her hair, a scent he had trouble placing but that smelled wonderful. He sighed and buried his face in her hair until he reached her head, and then he kissed it lightly. By that time, Hermione started stirring from her light sleep. She slowly opened her eyes and peered up at him.

"Mornin'", she mumbled against his neck and he had to smile again.

"Morning", he replied and closed his eyes again. He wouldn't mind lying like that for a while longer.

The time, however, was not in their favour. There was a knock on the door and Draco groaned loudly. He knew what it meant.

"Go away", he said without moving from the bed. When he could feel Hermione tense up, he chuckled.

"It's just Cranky", he said and it seemed to calm her down. It knocked on the door again and Draco sighed. "I need to get up."

As if the elf outside had heard, the door opened and Cranky stepped inside. The elf looked extremely uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry to disturb you sir, lady, but your parents are already waiting", the elf said as Draco sat up in the bed, pulling a hand through his hair.

"Is it that late already?" Draco asked and the comment made Cranky blush.

"Yes, well, sir, Cranky didn't want to wake the two of you up."

Hermione suddenly looked up from bed and smiled at the elf.

"Thank you, Cranky. That's very kind of you", she said in a comforting tone but it only made the elf blush even harder. Draco looked entertained back at her.

"Are you coaxing my house elf?" he asked with a daring tone and earned a glare in return. He leaned closer to her, ignoring that Cranky seemed deeply uncomfortable with them.

"Will you stay?" he asked as he sneaked his arms back around her.

"I should…" she started answering uncertainly but silenced and bit her lip. Then she sighed. "Maybe."

It was, for the moment, good enough for him. At least it wasn't a no and the fact that she had been there at all when he woke up told him chances were good she would continue staying. Besides, his bed was bigger and more comfortable than hers.

"Master…" Cranky said from the other side of the room and Draco finally rose from the bed. He got dressed in the clothes Cranky had put out for him and put his wand in his inner pocket before leaving with the elf, not without casting one last glimpse at the woman lying in his bed. He locked the door from the outside like he always did when he left it and followed the elf down the hallway.

Breakfast went a whole lot more comfortable than it had yesterday and Draco was in a better mood than he had been in a long time. He tried, though, to hide it from his parents because he knew they knew it wasn't normal for him to actually be in a good mood.

"It's lovely weather today", his mother stated by the end of breakfast. "Would you like to accompany me to the lake today again, Draco love?"

Draco was suddenly brought out of his thoughts when he realised his mother had asked him a question. He hesitated for a moment, a bit unwilling to spend the day outside his room. On the same time, he knew he couldn't say no.

"Sure", he answered and earned a smile from his mother in return.

And so when they left the room Draco followed his mother outdoors instead of following his father down the hallway he rather wanted to go to. The fact that he knew that Hermione probably laid in his bed, naked, only a hallway away was hard to forget.

"Are you alright?" his mother suddenly asked.

"Yes, of course", Draco responded but his mother didn't seem convinced.

"I asked you if you saw that Granger-girl after our talk yesterday", and Draco stopped in his steps. His mother, too, stopped in her tracks in front of him and looked back.

"So did you?" she repeated and Draco nodded.

"Yes."

"Did you tell her?"

Tell her what? Tell her that his mother had seen them kiss? That they had talked about her? That he _liked_ her?

"No. No, I didn't."


	36. Chapter 36

His mother suddenly sighed and looked at him a little disappointed. But she didn't say anything more, and they continued their walk down to the lake. The dog, Sigge, had once again joined them and Draco watched his mother in front of him. She was wearing a darker dress this time, but still loose and muggle-like than wizard robes. Her hair flowed over her back much like Hermione's, expect white and straight and tameable.

They day went by and Draco didn't manage to get Hermione out of his head for more than a second. The longer it went for him to get back to his room, the less confident he became of her still remaining when he did.

And so when he finally was able to head back to his room it was well into the afternoon and he was in a very foul mood. He was angry with himself for not getting her out of his head, he was angry with himself for feeling uncertain. It was annoying. It was weak.

He stopped in front of his door and hesitated before swinging his wand and unlocking the door. He knew the lock didn't matter to her because the only way for her to leave his room without getting burned by the sun was via apparation.

When he stepped inside his eyes darted to his bed immediately, but he couldn't tell if Hermione was still there or simply left his covers extremely crumbled up.

"Hermione?" he asked, surprised of the use of her first name the moment it left his mouth. The covers suddenly moved and a head covered in brown hair peeked out at him. He suddenly felt himself releasing a breath he didn't knew he had hold.

"Draco", Hermione mumbled as if she was just as tired as she had been this morning. She distracted a hand from the covers and reached out of him, silently asking him to join her. He approached the bed with a completely different feeling in his stomach than the big stone that had resided there for half the day.

"Hi", she said when he stopped by the bed to take his shoes off, and when he crawled under the covers his smile was matching hers.

"Hello", he answered and tangled his fully clothed arms around her still naked body. Hermione, on the other hand, still seemed too sleepy to realise or care.

They lay like that for a while, Hermione half sleeping against him, and Draco allowing his heart to slow down and relax. When he finally did, Hermione looked up at him, smiled and nuzzled deeper into his shoulder. Her hands found their way under his dress shirt and gave Draco goosebumps.

"What time is it?" she asked after a while.

"Almost four o'clock, I would guess", he answered and she nodded. Then she arched her neck so that her mouth ghosted against his neck, and the moment she kissed him the goosebumps returned. She slowly planted kiss after kiss against his neck while her hands caressed whatever she was able to reach of his upper body. She moved closer to him and pressed a leg in between his, but after that she stopped and Draco released a shaky breath.

"I forgot to tell you…" she said and she suddenly frowned a little. "That I sort of… ran into Peter yesterday."

"What?" he choked and she just nodded.

"He was waiting in my room when we returned. He wanted to know how I got my magic back. And then he tried to read my mind."

It took Draco a moment to process what she said, especially when her hands were laying so dangerously against his chest.

"He did what?"

"Tried to read my mind", she replied, but he hadn't really meant it as a question. He shook his head.

"I mean… how?"

"He told me every vampire has a special and unique skill. Mine is magic. His was mind reading."

Draco's eyes widened in surprise. That was something he had never heard of before.

"Well, yours is way better", he stated after a while and Hermione chuckled.

They lay silent for a while, thinking, before Hermione spoke again.

"Perhaps that's how it was for Estelle too. It makes sense."

Draco wasn't as convinced.

"Except your abilities are… greater than every other vampire's abilities put together. It's not… balanced."

He could feel Hermione nod and he knew she understood. If there was one thing you know about nature and creature and life was that it was balanced. It was always like that. No one was just born with a billion better conditions than their sibling. Some creatures could earn their power, yes, but not in such an amount from the very beginning.

"I… ran into my mother yesterday, too."

"Mhm?" Hermione responded, not being as surprised. He did see his mother everyday, after all.

"She saw us kiss."

And then she looked up at him with slight panic in her eyes.

"What?" she piped.

"And then she confronted me about it", Draco continued.

"What did she say?"

Draco pondered for a while before answering, and not only because he knew it taunted her. He didn't really know what to say.

"She's not going to tell father", he answered at last and Hermione looked surprised.

"She said that?"

Draco nodded.

"She… doesn't trust you. But she wants me to be happy", he continued with a frown, in reality telling more than he intended to. Hermione's concerned look suddenly disappeared.

"Of course she want", she said and Draco looked back at her. Her brown eyes was sparkling at him.

"It's not a secret your mother cares for you deeply", Hermione said. "What she did in the war… I believe we owe the outcome of it to her."

Draco was taken by surprise by Hermione's statement. No one had ever looked at them except like criminals for participating in the war they way they had. Sure, his mother's actions had come public and people had discussed how great they had been, but no one had ever, really, in person, given her credit. Thanked her.

When he refocused at Hermione, he could see that she was lost in thoughts that weren't particularly nice. Her smile was gone, she looked pained and her gaze was fixed on a point in Draco's neck Draco wasn't sure she was actually seeing.

"You alright?" he asked and she was brought out of her reverie. She simply nodded, sighed, and Draco didn't ask anything more.


	37. Chapter 37

"Don't you think we should try the daywalker charm?" Draco asked later that night. He had left Hermione earlier that afternoon to have dinner with his parents, and when he had returned Hermione had rose from bed, reading through one of the journals once again, wearing nothing but knickers and one of Draco's sweaters.

"It's the hardest one. It took Estelle six tries before she managed it", Hermione responded uncertainly.

"So? Then we'll try it until we succeed. It ain't gonna do itself."

But Hermione still didn't seem convinced and Draco frowned.

"Don't you want to be able to go out? In the sun? Ever?"

"I shouldn't be able to", she answered conflicted and bit her lower lip.

"You shouldn't not be able to."

She suddenly frowned as if she didn't understand what he meant.

"You shouldn't be a vampire in the first place."

"But I am."

"Yes. But still not. You're already breaking the rules of what a vampire should be. Why not do one more thing?"

Her gaze darted out in the room again and he could tell that she was thinking it over. Not that he was going to let her say no anyway.

"Okay", she said after a while and Draco smiled victoriously. "If we unite our magic, it might not require as many tries. But I need a piece of jewellery."

She stood up from the windowsill as she talked and it was obvious that she was really eager to perform the daywalker charm.

"Don't you have anything you wear everyday?" he asked.

"No, I don't."

"Anything you wear now and then?"

But she shook her head again.

"You don't ever wear jewellery?" he asked in disbelief and she shook her head again.

"Why not?" he continued as he stood up and started rummaging around the boxes in his desk and drawer.

"I don't feel comfortable with it. Not since.. er, the Slytherin locket."

Draco froze in his searching and looked back at her.

"You wore the Slytherin locket?" he repeated because he really couldn't remember that detail from the stories that had come out of what the trio had done during the war. Hermione glanced at him and nodded, her facial expression locked between determination and unease.

"It was difficult to wear. It twisted your mind when you wore it. Its no wonder Umbridge was such a mean woman."

At this, Draco had to chuckle.

"I always thought Umbridge to be a very nice and kind and happy lady", he answered teasingly. Hermione tried to glare at him but couldn't hold in a laugh.

"I bet she invited you over for tea many times."

"Not very", he grimaced and Hermione laughed again. Draco returned to searching through his drawers and soon found what he was looking for. He held the ring up so that he could watch it and tilted his head. It was quite the insignificant ring, made in black silver with a green stone. He had inherited it sometime from someone, but he couldn't remember when or from whom. It had been left in the drawer in the mansion for as long as he could remember.

"Will this do?" he asked and handed her the ring. She inspected it in the same manner he had.

"I guess. Is it precious to you?"

"No, I don't even remember where it comes from. It's just laying around."

Hermione fell silent for a while.

"It's very Slytherin", she stated and Draco chuckled again.

"You say it like it's a bad thing."

She looked up at him with raised eyebrows.

"I'm a Gryffindor. Of course Slytherin is a bad thing", she answered but her voice was spiced with irony.

"We can make a new one later, if you want. But we can at least use it for practicing."

Hermione seemed satisfied and tried the ring on her right ring finger.

"It's actually kind of pretty", she continued, talking more to herself than to him. Draco reached for the journal Hermione had been reading, and found the pages where Estelle described the charm.

"You know how to do it?" he asked when he looked up from the journal to find Hermione watching him, the ring now clutched in-between her fingers.

"Yes."

He nodded and rose up. He straightened the blankets in his bed that was still in a mess, and Hermione placed the ring in the middle of it before they step back.

Then they raised their wands and pointed them at the ring. Their eyes met and Draco could see her taking a deep breath.

"_Abscondia Solis_", they then said in perfect unison. Their spells hit the ring in the exact same moment but nothing seemed to happen. Hermione frowned. She leaned over and picked the ring up.

"That didn't seem to work", she sighed as she tried the ring on.

"Are you sure?" Draco asked, because he didn't see how she could really tell without actually stepping into the sun.

"Yes", she answered and Draco shrudded. It wasn't like they could try it in the sun now anyway.

"Can I try something?" she then continued and Draco nodded. She put the ring back on the covers, but instead of stepping back to her place, she approached him and positioned herself right in front of him.

"Raise your wand", she demanded and Draco did. When his wand again pointed at the ring, Hermione backed even closer to him and raised her wand to, positioning them side-by-side.

By now, Hermione stood so close to him, Draco could just bend down his head a place a kiss on her right cheek. She chuckled when he did.

"Focus", she responded but her smile didn't falter completely. Draco's gaze landed on the ring and he focused on his breath, collecting his magic into his wand.

"_Abscondia Solis_", they said once again, and this time Draco could feel his magic meet and entwine itself with Hermione's. Their magic hit the ring in one, united beam and the ring light up. It took a moment for them to calm down; overwhelmed with the feeling of how their united magic had felt. Draco could feel tinges going from his wand-hand, rushing through his arm and down to his heart and gut.

"That was a lot different", Hermione stated after a while. This time, it was Draco's curiosity that made him pick up the ring before Hermione did. It didn't feel any different in his hands, so he lifted his wand at it again and waved it in a way more simple manner than the previous.

"Revealo", he mumbled and the ring once can light up and gave away a small gleam of golden shimmer. He waved his wand again, noticing it was a lot harder producing even a simple spell like that.

"Well, it's charmed with something at least", he said and Hermione stepped up to him.

"Then we'll have to try it", she answered and he handed her the ring.


	38. Chapter 38

Draco fell asleep sometime later that night, Hermione sitting in his chair flipping the pages of some journal. It wasn't starting to lighten outside already, but the clock was still more than one o'clock when he did.

When Hermione noticed that Draco's breathing changed, she looked up at him and saw him asleep in his bed. She smiled slightly and then returned to the journal. It didn't give her much; they had read them at least three times each by now. Still, Hermione didn't know what else to do so there she sat, looking through the books for hints and things they hadn't noticed before.

Her gaze slowly returned to Draco and she watched his sleeping form from out of the corners of her eyes. She was conflicted of what to think and feel for him. Lately, though, she had let herself feel more than think, and it had been… great. She understood that her new body, her new needs, demanded a companion. Almost no one of the other vampire's in the mansion lived alone. Even if Draco was Draco, she felt better, calmer and more herself in his presence. She sighed. That was really not excuse enough for her to be with him. Was he simply the first handy man that came across? Could Draco bee anybody else?

She rose up from the chair and went to lie down between Draco in bed, resting her head in one of her hands. Draco looked extremely in peace and vulnerable when asleep and nothing like the harsh facial expressions she remembered from their time at Hogwarts.

Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference if it had been Draco or not. But now it was. And he wasn't an asshole or a douche bag or a sissy. That should still be cherished, shouldn't it?

She leaned closer and burrowed her nose in his hair. She suddenly wished she could smell him, even if she knew she couldn't have been able to be that close to him if she did. She sighed again and fell down on her back, resting her hands on her stomach. Normally, a girl would be able to smell her… friend's hair. Or his sweater she was wearing. Or his bed sheets.

She raised her right hand and watched the ring that sat on it. She wasn't comfortable with it, but if it meant she would be able to go outside, she could certainly learn to live with it. There was something quite depressing with being stuck in bed while the sun shone outside. But she was afraid of all the possibilities it would give her, because she certainly wasn't ready to take them.

She would be able to get back to England and live somewhat of an ordinary life at least. She would need to see Harry and Ron and Ginny and everybody. She highly doubted they would take the vampire-business as coolly as Draco had. He had, after all, been living with them now and then for almost his whole life. For her friends, vampires were just some monsters that you read about it books or in stories that probably weren't true about someone's adventures in some foreign country. And she would certainly be able to smell them, because she highly doubted the Potter's or the Weasley's were related to the Malfoy's.

A couple of hours later, Draco woke up to the sun shining into his room brighter than he was used to. When he looked up, he saw Hermione standing by the window, pulling the windows away. She stepped away so that she was still in the shadows when she did, and looked up at him when she heard him move.

They stared at each other for a moment, exchanging silent sentences. At last, Hermione dropped her gaze and lifted her hand up, so that it was only a small distance from the sunlight. She squeezed her eyes shut and moved her hand.

"Hermione", she heard Draco say after a while, and she peeked an eye open. "It works."

She almost couldn't believe her eyes when she could see her hand in the sunlight, neither hurting nor burning with smoke. Even in her short time of being a vampire, she had instinctively learned to stay out of the sunlight. It felt… unnatural to see it in the bright light, but on the same time absolutely freeing.

She laughed in surprise and stretched more of her arm into the sun. Slowly, she stepped into it completely and let the sun fall on her face.

"I can't believe we managed to do it on our second try", she said disbelievingly and laughing. She turned to Draco, who still lay in bed. "Will you go out with me?"

They fell in an odd silence.

"I mean… out, outdoors, of course", Hermione continued and Draco just chuckled. Then he rolled around in bed and glanced at the big grandfather clock in the other end of the room. There was still more than an hour left until breakfast.

"Why not", he said at last, and rose from bed. "But you better put on your own clothes, because I don't want my parents to see you in that."

Hermione looked down on his sweater and naked legs.

"Indeed", she agreed and she changed her clothes while Draco got dressed.

Hermione had to keep herself under control to keep the same pace as Draco when they finally headed outside. When they finally reached the front door, she stepped out as carefully as she had in Draco's room.

She stared on her feet that now stood on the small staircase that led up to the front door, and then up at the blue sky and the bright sun that possessed it.

"You're not gonna put on some shoes?" she heard Draco ask from behind, but she ignored it. She didn't need shoes. Who really needed shoes?

She continued down the small staircase and down on the gravel, only enjoying how it stung her soles. She heard Draco sit down behind her, but at the moment she couldn't care less about him. She continued quite the bit down the front yard of the mansion, until she reached grass and only then did she start to head back to Draco.

When she did, she noticed that he suddenly wasn't alone anymore. Beside him stood not only the whitest dog she had ever seen, but also his mother.


	39. Chapter 39

Hermione's first thought concerned Narcissa, and what she was doing out there. She quickly learned, though, that the woman wasn't her biggest concern. The moment Hermione had turned around and walked back to the mansion, the white dog had rose up and approached her, apparently not realising that Hermione wasn't as harmless as Draco and Narcissa.

Before the dog had even passed half the front yard towards her, Hermione could smell it. She froze on the spot, and the dog stopped too. It watched her curiously, but all Hermione could think off was the now very prominent smell it gave away and how its breaths echoed in her head. The dog eventually seemed to decide that it still wanted to check her out a bit closer and approached her again.

"Sigge!", Hermione heard Draco call uncertainly but the dog didn't bother. When it was just a mere meter away, she couldn't take it anymore. With a harsh breath she closed her eyes and apparated, showing up behind Draco and his mother just a moment later, making them jump and the dog, now on the other side of the yard stop in its track and look around.

Draco and Narcissa were staring at her, but Hermione didn't have time to get bothered by it yet. It took all her willpower to calm down and not hear the dog's heartbeat in her ears anymore. She decided to focus on the more comforting nonexistent smell of the Malfoy's instead.

"I'll… I'll take Sigge away", Narcissa said after a while and hastily left them on the staircase. Draco and Hermione stood in silence while Narcissa approached the dog and walked away with it.

"You alright?" Draco asked after a while, and Hermione looked down at him.

"Yes", she answered lightly after a while. "That was just… I wasn't prepared for that."

She stepped down and sat down beside him, still shaky of what just had happened.

"Do you think you ever will be?" Draco asked again, watching her with his eyes narrowed because of the bright sun. She sighed and looked up in the sky.

"I hope so."

They fell silent again, and a small while later Narcissa came back around the corner. She gave them a stern smile as she got closer.

"Breakfast in 15 minutes, Draco", she said as she passed them on the staircase. Draco looked up at her and nodded. Then she disappeared inside the house.

Comfortable his mother had left them, Hermione moved closer to Draco and leaned on his shoulder.

"You have no idea how much different the scent of something does", she sighed into his neck and the statement made Draco relax a bit.

"Maybe we should try and keep Sigge out of the way when you're outside", Draco suggested. To his surprise, Hermione shook her head.

"No, I need to get used to it. If I get that… uncontrolled around a dog, think of how what a human would do."

Draco glanced down at her.

"Okay", he replied reluctantly. He understood her logic, but he, too, had been completely unprepared for her reaction. If he'd thought about it, he could have kept Sigge back from the very beginning. But it always slipped his mind that Hermione was very much a vampire, and a new one at that. He had watched it happened with not much attention, first, until he noticed Hermione acting way different, and it had freaked him out. His fear and above all, shock, had intensified thousandfold when she had shown up behind he and his mother with glowing, red eyes and a breath that was too fast be human.

She had calmed down in a matter of seconds, and both her breathing and her eye colour had returned to what he was used to.

He had been scared, yes, but the fact that his presence had helped her calm down and not the opposite had been more reassuring than anything. He knew that she never would react like that to him, because she hadn't yet.

And if she could rest her head against his shoulder with her ear against his neck, hell, if she could _kiss_ him where she would otherwise slice the skin open, how could he really doubt her?

"I need to go inside, Granger", he whispered after a while. Hermione, who had almost fallen asleep, nodded. She lifted her head of his shoulder and allowed him to stand up.

"See you later", he said and teasingly ruffed his hand through her hair as he did.

"Hey!", she shouted and made and effort to push his hand away, but he already stepped away. She pouted at him when he chuckled and stepped indoors. With his hands in his pockets, he made his way to the smaller dining room.

His parents were already there when he stepped inside the room, but they didn't immediately acknowledge his arrival. Only when he had sat down and helped himself to some coffee, his mother spoke up.

"How is she outdoors?"

He looked up at his parents, that were both watching him demandingly. Then he looked around the room, uncertain of how much he was supposed to say when anyone could hear.

"It's a daywalker charm. Estelle wrote about it."

His father suddenly huffed disbelievingly.

"A daywalker charm? I've never heard of anything like that."

Narcissa frowned and nodded in agreement.

"Me neither. And if there is such a spell, why doesn't every vampire use it?"

Draco sighed and shrudded.

"I don't know. All I know is that Estelle did one, and it worked for her. And now it worked for Her… Granger."

His father raised a daring eyebrow at his almost-slip up.

"It still sounds preposterous."

"Yes, well, she's out there, isn't she? So it obviously works", Draco answered irritated, and his parents dropped the subject.

When Draco was heading back to his room almost an hour later, he noticed that Hermione was still sitting exactly where he had left her.

"Have you been sitting here all the time?" he asked when he stepped out to her. Hermione smiled weakly when he walked past her down on the grovel.

"I was too scared to go anywhere without you", she admitted a little awkwardly.


	40. Chapter 40

They started the day with going down to the lake. Hermione knew Draco had spent many of the sunniest days down there and was eager to go there, too. Every step they took was overwhelming to her, and even though they had walked through the forest nighttime, it took her a while to learn to not listen to all of the sounds of the living forest around them. She got, almost crucially, aware of every animal that was in their immediate area and when they were reaching the lake, she sound of the water moving and the fish swimming was almost too much. It took her several minutes to push the sound away and focus on what Draco was saying.

"That's Olle's house, over there", he'd said and she looked up, out over the water and to the shore on the other side. She nodded.

Draco sat down on a big rock. Hermione imagined it probably served as a towel holder when… if, people ever took a bath here.

"So, tell me what you're feeling. Hearing. Smelling", Draco continued, his arms crossed and an expression with questionable disinterest on his face. She hesitated.

"I know there's fish in the lake", she started and looked out in the water. She knew _exactly_ where she fish was. "I know there are four birds nests within ten meters of us. One rabbithole, but the rabbits are a bit further away. There's three deer a few hundred meters away, that way…"

She silenced and Draco looked the way she had pointed. She listened a bit more.

"And there's ants, and insects, and fly's… _everywhere_."

Draco suddenly chuckled and Hermione couldn't help but join in. It was ridiculous. It was all ridiculous and weird and unnatural. She took a deep breath and silenced.

They spent the rest of the forenoon wandering the grounds around the mansion, and Hermione slowly got more used to all the living creatures around her. When they headed back to the mansion, she wasn't anymore as overwhelmed by the whole experience. She managed to filter out the things that were small and insignificant and only bothering.

When they stepped indoors again, Hermione had started to feel immensely tired, and she yawned.

"Maybe you should go to bed", Draco suggested but Hermione shook her head.

"You can at least take a nap while I have dinner", Draco continued, his tone more demanding than suggesting this time. She narrowed her eyes at him, but she knew it was probably a good idea.

They reached his room. Draco changed his clothes and Hermione crept down under the ridiculously comforting covers in his bed.

They had somehow reached a silent agreement of her staying in his room. She hadn't been to her own room in at least two days and Draco didn't really see any reason for her to go back there. Hermione, too, seemed to think along the same lines. Draco didn't seem to mind her there, quite the opposite actually, so why should she go back to the bed that was less comforting and more lonely?

Hermione fell asleep before Draco had even left the room.

She woke up to the sound of him returning, and she stirred in the bed to glance at the grandfather clock. She sighed in relief when she realised she hadn't slept for that long. She turned around again and watched Draco with only half an eye open. Draco had seemingly ignored her movement and unbuttoned his dress shirt a bit and rolled the sleeves up, so that it didn't look as formal anymore. Then he sat down in his chair and reached for one of the books on his desk, seemingly not caring which one he got hold of. Then he started reading.

"How was dinner?" Hermione asked after a while, and Draco glanced up at her.

"As usual", he replied and flipped another page of the book.

"How's usual?" Hermione continued and Draco frowned.

"Boring", he eventually answered. Hermione smiled before closing her eyes again.

"How was yours?" Draco asked after a while.

"Mine what?"

"Dinner with your parents?"

Draco had, by now, looked up at her and she evaded his eyes.

"It was nice. Cosy."

Draco closed the book and put it back on the desk.

"Do you miss them?" he continued, and when he looked back at her her expression had suddenly hardened. When she didn't answer, he rose up from his chair and approached the bed. He crept down beside her in silence and lied down on his back. Hermione moved over to give him place, and when he'd settled, she leaned on his shoulder and placed an arm on his.

The following days went by in the same way. Draco and Hermione spent they day's outside and Hermione became more used to it by every hour. By the end of her fourth day in the sun, she even managed to have Sigge jumping around them without reacting badly to it. When night fell, they would spend it in Draco's room, reading, talking and even trying mastering the Moonlight spell a bit. They did not, however, have sex again. They kissed once in a while, and slept together, but whenever they ended up in bed Hermione, and to some extent Draco, was too exhausted to do anything else than shut their eyes closed.

And they didn't get anywhere closer solving the mystery of Estelle, or Peter for that matter. Draco had started to think they would perhaps never find out, but little did he know that he would find out sooner than later.

When he returned to his room after having a late dinner with his parents on the fifth day, he found his room empty. The bed was glowing missing with the figure that had slept there when he left, and he immediately grew cautious.

"Granger?" he asked out loud, but he didn't get any answer. "Cranky?" he then continued, and the house elf appeared immediately.

"Yes master?" it bowed.

"Where's Hermione?"

The elf rose up to answer and grimaced uncomfortably.

"She's in her own room, sir. She's not alone there, sir. You might want to go and…"

But Draco had already disapparated.


	41. Chapter 41

Hermione hadn't thought much about leaving Draco room. She had woken up shortly after he had left and, again, sighed because there were a few things from her own room that she found herself missing. Sure, Cranky had started putting out fresh clothes to her in the mornings, but that was about it.

So she left his room without any further thoughts than to go get it while Draco still was away. She walked to her room almost without thinking, partly because she was absolutely exhausted (it was tiring to all of a sudden sleep so much less than she had gotten used to), but also because she new the route so well she could've taken it in her sleep.

She would, in aftermath, scold herself for being so reckless. But living in a house, almost calling it home, and still sharing it with people she was unsure if they were friends or foes, was incredibly deceiving.

She managed to reach her doors and unlocking it before she realised something was wrong. The moment her locks clicked open, she suddenly wasn't alone anymore. There were at least five other vampire suddenly surrounding her, one ripping her wand out of her hands before she even had the time to react, another taking hold of her door so that it wouldn't slam back shut.

"What?" what all she managed to utter before she was hustled into her own room, another vampire gripping her wrists, forcing them up her back and holding them there.

Before the doors shut behind them, Peter walked inside. The vampire who had taken her wand handed it to him, and then stepped back like the rest.

"How nice to see you again, Hermione", Peter greeted without even looking up from her wand.

When Hermione didn't answer, though, he eventually looked up and smiled.

"We've wanted to talk to you for a while, but you never leave that damn Malfoy's side, do you?" Peter continued as he walked the room. "You have to understand… you can't walk around in the sun like a normal human being without getting some attention, when clearly you are not supposed to be."

Whoever was holding Hermione up (she didn't recognize his or hers smell) suddenly gripped her wrists a little tighter, and she had to bite her lip from gasping. She knew she was stronger than them, but only magically. Psychically, any vampire older than her would be stronger. And considering her age, every single one of them was.

Peter sat down on the edge of her bed and tilted his head. Even though her room was completely dark, she could see his facial expression clearly. His eyes were meeting hers, hard and determined.

"If you just tell us how you do it, no one will need to get hurt", Peter continued, and Hermione had to force herself to not roll her eyes. As if it ever was that easy.

"We have all the time in the world. And if your dear boyfriend discovers you're gone, I have ten friends waiting for him in the hallway."

And then Peter nodded, and the person behind her angled her arms in such a way that she was forced down on her knees with a startled cry. Peter then rose from the bed, approached her, and crouched down on his knees to get on the same level as her.

"I know you're not unused to force, Hermione. So you have to pardon me if we're being to hard on you", he said in a disturbingly easy tone. Suddenly, he had a knife in his hands and he actually winked at her.

"Normally, if a vampire get stabbed here", he continued and positioned the knife so that it pointed to her heart, "they collapse for a little while. Then they wake up, like nothing ever happened."

The knife scraped from her chest up to her neck.

"However, they do not have a beating heart, like you. And we don't want to risk you actually… dying, again."

And then he drove the knife deep down her shoulder. The pain was shocking and Hermione gasped, but not overwhelming. She had had much worse injuries before, and she could even feel the wound start to heal itself with the knife still inside her.

She took a deep, ragged breath before looking up at Peter again, who was looking at her entertainingly.

"Impressive", he said. "I suppose my previous comment was completely unnecessary."

She could feel the sleeve of her shirt go warm and wet as she followed Peter's motions with her eyes.

"I told you want we want, Hermione… just tell us how you do it. How is it that you're breathing? Your heart beating? Your skin not burning?"

Peter, again, sat down on her bed, another knife suddenly in his hands again.

"I know you have a few of Estelle's notebooks. But I've read them so many times I could quote them all in my sleep, they say nothing of the things you've done."

If Hermione hadn't been so determined not to let anything Peter say touch her, she would have frowned. Then Peter suddenly chuckled.

"Well, the ones you have don't. The ones _I_ have, however, do. They mention these things, but not how you do it. And that… doesn't make any sense. Don't you agree?"

It felt like several minutes managed to past while Peter was simply staring at her. Then he suddenly smiled again.

"You know, if I could… I would give you a matching scar on your other arm. I _really_ wish I could", Peter said and faked a disappointed sigh. "But I can't. That's one of the perks of being what we are, since we are trapped in this… we can't scar. Isn't that nice? I bet you have a few that you would've liked not to have."

"Peter", one of the other vampires suddenly said and Peter nodded. It did not however seem like a warning, but as if the other was delivering a message even though he had been in the room for as long as Peter had.

"Oh!" Peter suddenly expressed. "I haven't been introduced to everyone here, have you? How rude of us."

And with this, he approached Hermione again and lay a hand on her shoulder in what could have been a casual way but certainly wasn't. His fingers dug into the wound in which the knife still sat it and another flood of blood streamed down her arm.

"That's Sophie… she's from Italy, she's here because she's the mate of Julius here…", Peter nodded towards the man who had recently called Peter out. Hermione met everyone's of their eyes and they all responded with either gleeful or disturbing smiles. "You know Elsa… And this dear fella behind you is Magnus. He's the oldest one of us."


	42. Chapter 42

Draco forgot the risks that followed apparating. He had thought no further than to get to Hermione's room as quickly as possible, and not considering the fact that 'not alone' could mean _very_ much not alone. Meaning both her room and the hallway outside could be full with… well, at least on friends.

The moment he appeared in the hallway, he realised. He realised that it had been reckless of him to not head for at least around the corner, and he realised there was no way he could handle the six vampires that stood in each corner of the hallway.

But he had their surprise to his advantage, and with his wand already in hand, he cast a curse towards the closest one before the other one's had even looked up.

The curse hit the vampire straight in the face and she fell down hard on the floor behind her. But it was impossible to aim another curse at the rest of them while they were moving, and Draco soon felt his wand being ripped from his grip. His left arm was brought up his back, and an armed snaked around his neck, gripping tightly in the nape of his hair, sending very uncomfortable shrills down his back.

Everything stood still for a moment, until the hit vampire groaned loudly and sat up on her elbows.

"Aoch", she mumbled, and brought a hand up to her nose. Half her face and upperbody was covered in blood, and Draco was, for a second, shocked that she was even conscious. Normally, the spell would hurt the person so bad they'd be lucky to ever wake up, depending on how spot on it had been.

The woman got to her feet and glared at him.

"Let's get him inside", she ordered and a man that stood the closest to Hermione's door, knocked on it.

He waited for a few seconds before opening, seemingly hearing an invitation Draco didn't.

Hermione's room was darker than the hallway and Draco didn't at first realise what was going on in there as he was pushed inside.

"Ah, Malfoy", he heard someone say, and he soon recognized it at Peter's. He had never talked to him personally, but heard him talk well enough times through the years to recognize his voice. The dude rarely shut up.

"Let him go, Robin. You know we are not supposed to harm him. Give me his wand and just… keep an eye on him."

The man, who was still holding Draco in a neck grip, let him go and took a step back. Draco could hear another one walking, and he narrowed his eyes to quicker get used to the darkness.

He could see several silhouettes in the room, but since no one but Peter had spoken, he could only conclude who three of them were – Peter, the woman who had taken his wand, and the man standing behind him.

"What happened to you?" Peter then asked and yet another one of the silhouettes moved.

"He hit me", she said and raised her free hand in the air.

"With what?" a fifth said with a considerably more concerned tone.

"I don't know, some curse. I'm fine."

They all silenced and the room got even clearer to Draco.

"Hermione?" he asked when he thought he had her located, pinned in front of somebody else. He only recognized her because of the contours of her hair and the fact that she was the only one in the room, beside himself, who was breathing.

"Draco", Hermione replied, her tone stiff and forced and not at all like he would have liked it to be.

Before Draco had the chance to ask her if she was alright, Peter stood in front of him.

"We're just asking her some questions. There is really no need for you to be here, Draco", he said and he stood so close it was impossible for Draco not to stare up in his face.

Peter's face was, of course, disturbingly friendly.

"Unless you can tell us instead. Hermione isn't very cooperative, you see."

"What do you want to know?" Draco asked, because he wasn't going to argue if he didn't know what it was about.

"They want to do the things I do", Hermione's voice was suddenly heard. Draco frowned.

"Is that it?" he continued and looked back at Peter, who'se expression was the same.

"Of course not", and the creep smiled again. "Shall we turn on the light?"

Somebody was moving behind Draco, there was the sound of the flick of a switch, and Hermione's room was suddenly lit up by two small lamps on either side of the room.

The first thing Draco saw was Hermione. She looked a thousand times worse than she had sounded, a knife sticking out of one of her shoulders and yet another one from her stomache. She was half covered in blood but she looked at him with a soberness that was normally unlikely for anyone that had lost that amout of blood. She was standing firmly on her feet and met his eyes without flinching. The man who stod behind her was holding her hands in a tight grip, he had a faint smile on his lips as he, too, met Draco's eyes.

"I want you to leave Hermione alone and never tell a soul where she is."

Draco's eyes snapped back to Peter, who was now sitting down on Hermione's bed.

"What?"

"I want you to leave Hermione alone and never tell _a_ _soul_, where she is", Peter repeated and his eye's suddenly turned brighter. "If you wont do it willingly, I won't hesitate to force you. But I would like not to disobey Carl if possible."

Peter then leaned back in the back as if he was simply waiting for Draco to surrender and agree.

"You know what? I'll make you a deal."

And then Peter rose up from the bed and wandered, a bit aimlessly, in the room.

"If you tell us the things we want to know, I'll let you two be together for the rest of the summer. But if you don't, I'll keep Hermione from now on, and even if she doesn't tell us _now_… I have eternity to break her", and then he laughed as if the was the funniest thing he had ever said. The rest of the vampires in the room joined in, but not as loudly.

Draco's eyes darted to Hermione's, who shook her head at him, and when he turned to look back at Peter, the man suddenly stood in front of him again.

"I could, though… decide to not let you go, either", and his iris was so bright it was almost white. "I've always wondered if your blood is as tasteless as your smell."


	43. Chapter 43

"Okay!" Hermione cried out before she even realised she had said something. She took a sharp breath, not because she regretted it, but because she had heard something. Something she wouldn't have heard unless she was so used to the sound she would recognize even in the strangest situations, and her yelling seemed to have covered the noise up for everybody else.

She didn't know many who could make that noise so silently. Her eyes wandered for half of a second towards the door, but were soon brought back to Peter, who had leaned back from Draco and looked at her.

"Okay, what?" he asked, his face twisted in a victorious smile, the question only an opportunity to gloat in it.

"I'll tell you whatever you want", and she glanced at the door again, and Peter, who mistook it for Draco because he was placed in front of it, glanced between the two of them.

"How lovely. You can start with how you got your magic back."

But Hermione had never intended to answer. She didn't honestly know what bad it really could do for them to have some of the information; they wouldn't be able to use it anyway, but she wasn't going to tell them anyhow. Peter seemed to see the defiance in her eyes and angered. His pupils' dilated once again, grew white and without even looking back at Draco, he snatched his arm out and gripped him around the neck.

Draco, who had had his eyes on Hermione, was caught in surprise. Peter's fingers were digging into his neck and Draco gasped loudly as he felt his heels leave the floor.

Then Hermione heard the sound again, and this time she wasn't the only one. A couple of the other vampires in her room shifted their focus to her door, but before anyone got the chance to react to it, it flew open.

The first thing she saw was Narcissa and Lucius, wands up and stern looks.

The second thing was Carl, who appeared next to Peter and Draco with a firm hand on Peter's arm. Peter quickly let Draco go, pulled his arm back as if he had been burned, and stepped back.

"Carl, I…" Peter mumbled before silencing. Then he glanced towards the door where he was met with pointed wands. Carl followed his gaze.

"They'll lower their wands if you hand back the wands you've taken", Carl said, his voice too mild and pleading than either Hermione or Draco liked. Peter pulled the two wands out of his inner pocket and handed them to Carl. The moment Carl gave a small nod to Narcissa and Lucius, and they reluctantly lowered their wands, both Peter and Elsa disappeared out of the room.

Hermione, who could at least see them leave the room, looked back at Carl with surprised shock. He could have stopped them if he wanted to, she knew that. But he hadn't.

"Magnus, will you…?" Carl spoke again, and Hermione suddenly felt herself being released from Magnus hard grip. Her right hand immediately found the handle of the knife that was in her shoulder, and she pulled it out, grimacing at the pain. Then she headed for the one in her stomach and pulled that one out too.

When she looked up again, Carl was standing in front of her and the pity she saw in his eyes were not what she wanted.

"I'm really sorry I let that happen, Hermione", he said with a glance to the wound in her shoulder, which was now starting to heal properly.

"Are you really sorry you just let them escape, too?" she asked, not really caring how disrespectful it was for her to say that to the man who was not only a billion years older than her, but also the one who had taken her in, and not to mention stop Peter from getting his ways through just a moment ago.

"Peter is not a bad person", Carl said but Hermione could no longer find the strength to look back at him. She had to hold her tongue not to say another insult. Eventually, she met Carl's eyes, and she knew he was surprised by the amount of anger and blame he saw in her.

"Good night", she snapped eventually, and apparated away.

When Draco arrived to his room a little while later, it was empty. Then he heard the water going in the bathroom that lay connected to his room, and headed for the one other door in his room. When he opened it, the air was moist and he found Hermione looking up at him from the sink wearing only a towel. She sighed.

"Did you get my wand?" she asked and he nodded and patted on his chest where his innerpocket was located. She seemed satisfied with that and looked back in the mirror.

"Well, at least we know who has the rest of Estelle's journals now", she said and picked up a brush even if her hair nowadays really didn't need to get brushed.

"Who?" he asked as he walked by her to open a small window. Cold air hit him straight in the face, but it was kind of refreshing.

"Peter. He told me before you showed up."

"That makes a connection between him and Estelle", Draco concluded and Hermione nodded. Then they fell silent.

She looked tired. He knew that she was. They had been spending almost all days outside and while Draco could fall asleep during night, Hermione had lesser success with it. Even if she was still pale, he liked to imagine that she had gotten a bit of a suntan, and for every day that went he got to see less and less red irises. He wanted to, but he couldn't really blame her for getting into trouble. He probably would have too in her shoes.

"How are your wounds?" he asked after a while and she suddenly smiled a little.

"They're fine. They're almost gone. It was a long time since I took such a red shower, though", and her smile faltered away. Draco had only had a red shower once or twice in the war, but it hadn't been nice. One of the times it hadn't even been his own blood, and he couldn't decide which one of the two times had been worst.


	44. Chapter 44

_Here comes the chapter I know at least some of you have been waiting for! Please keep in mind that I'm not very used to reading/writing heterosexual smutness. Hope you like it anyway._

* * *

><p>"I doubt that was the last we saw of Peter", Hermione continued after a while as she put the brush away. Then she glanced at her own reflection and tilted her head.<p>

"My hair is somethinge else entirely", she chuckled. "Normally, this procedure would take at least twice as long."

He stepped up behind her and catched her eye in the mirror.

"I kind of like it this way, though. The old way was horrible", he said and earned a glare in return. Then he snaked his arms around her waist and leaned his chin in her hair.

"I'm glad you're fine though", he mumbled and she raised a perfectly manoeuvred eyebrow at him.

"Is that caring I hear? From you?" she teased, and then she turned around in his arms so that they stood face to face.

"I'm kind of glad you're fine too", she continued, and if Draco hadn't been too lost in how her hot breath tingled his cold skin, he would have at least feigned a little hurt.

Her cold fingers put themselves around his neck, and she kissed him. It was the one of the weirdest kiss Draco had ever had; hot and cold on the same time, but it was strangely appealing.

He felt Hermione tongue on his bottom lip, asking for entrance, and he obliged. They kissed slowly and thoroughly, and when Draco got goosebumps it wasn't only because the room was cold.

One of Hermione hands were in his hands, the other one on his right cheek, keeping him in place when she stood on her toes to deepen the kiss even more. Draco's arms were still around her waist, but gripped her tighter so that they got impossibly even closer. They kissed like that for several minutes without taking it any further, until their breaths were ragged and hastened and they desperately _wanted_ to take it much further. Draco's hands wandered down to the bottom of Hermione's towel, and then he pulled it up so that it would be possible for him to lift her up and for her to lock her legs around his waist.

And so he managed to get them smoothly to bed without even stopping the kissing. The moment they fell down on the mattress, Draco on top, Hermione's hands detangled themselves from his hair and went to unbutton his shirt. When she had unbuttoned all of them, she pushed the shirt over his shoulders and he threw it off on the floor. Her hands immediately settled on his chest, before slowly heading down to undo his zipper.

When she did, Draco broke the kiss and simply looked at her while they pulled his trousers of, forehead against forehead. When she looked back at him, her pupils were bigger than he had ever seen them. Her cheeks were actually rosy and her mouth swollen and as he looked at it, she bit her lower lip. He groaned and his hands, at last, went to undo the simple knot that made the towel stay around Hermione. When he had, Hermione arched her back so that he could pull the wet towel off the bed completely, and then she lay utterly naked in front of him.

"Why are you so thin?" he couldn't help but ask even if he knew it wasn't the best moment to do so. He leaned down over her and burrowed his face in her neck, slowly kissing, licking and nipping his way down to her collarbones, his hands on her hip respectively breast.

Hermione never answered. Her eyes were closed and her breath quickened as his mouth found one of her nipples and she suddenly gasped. She was running low on patience, she knew, but in the same time, she didn't want to rush this part. It was a great part but incredibly teasing, her tongue on her nipple, his hand on the other, his hardness between her legs, grinding so slowly through the only layer of fabric that was left; his underwear.

She lifted her legs and locked them around his waist again in an effort to bring him even closer, and it did. His hands suddenly joined hers on the hem of his underwear, and they pulled them off in joined effort.

Hermione was loosing tracks of her thoughts when he suddenly entered her, effortlessly like it had been an accident.

And Draco gasped, because it had. He had not aimed for doing that just yet, but she had been so wet and welcoming it happened before he even realised. So he complied, moved his hands to her waist and again burrowed his face in her neck, simply giving in to her openness, and her incredible gasping noises.

It didn't take long for Draco to realise that he wasn't far away from the edge. Hermione was insanely tight around him, meeting him in the same quick rhythm as his, and the noises that escaped her now were unlike anything he ever heard.

He moved one of his arms so that he was able to get properly on top of her again, and he stifled her moans with a kiss.

And then he lost any sense of anything. He lost Hermione's lips at some point and he realised she was coming, too, and it made his own peek linger for another second or two.

When they both came back to reality, Draco leaned down on her and Hermione gave him a tight hug with both arms and legs. They were both breathing heavily and when Draco moved his head so that he could breath some fresh air and on the same time look up at her, she looked at him too and smiled. Then she closed her eyes and sighed contempt and satisfactory.

"Sex is a thousand times more nice than it used to be", she whispered as she released him, allowing him to roll off her and lie next to her instead.

"Are you saying I'm a lot better than your previous bedmates?" he answered, and she chuckled.

"You know that's not what I meant."


	45. Chapter 45

Hermione didn't know what to do. Draco had fallen asleep next to her, and she wished it could have been as easy for her to do so too, but it wasn't. Her mind told her to leave, but her gut clenched when she realised it meant leaving Draco, the only thing she had left of anything.

She knew they had not seen the last of Peter and Elsa. She knew they wouldn't try anything again until, at the very earliest, Draco and his parents had returned home. If she even, in the craziest of world, left with them, they would eventually come after her anyway. They had unfinished business with her. And there was a small part of Hermione that wanted to know why, and how, and what.

She hated not knowing. How was she supposed to life the rest of eternity without knowing how she'd ended up as a vampire? On the other hand… if she had eternity, there really wasn't any rush to know. There would be time to find out in ways that didn't involve Peter, Elsa, or even Carl.

She had the time to spend years pretending not to care what she was, but she knew it probably wouldn't work. It wouldn't work because she was special, she was magical, and there were other vampires out there who knew about it. Even if she managed to flee, how long would it take for the rumour to spread until it reached someone who knew where she was?

Not very long, she guessed.

She missed her parents and her old friends so much it felt like her restarted heart was going to stop all over again. She didn't want to add Draco to the list of people she was going to miss, but out of all the options she went through in her head, that was how it most oftenly came down in the end.

She could run, practically tonight, and Peter and Elsa would leave the Malfoy's alone, because Carl was keeping an eye on them now.

She could confront them, Peter and Elsa, but how would that end? If she'd managed to overpower them, would it meant adding two or more names to the list of people she'd killed? Or would they overpower her, and do whatever what was necessary to get what they want? There was too much at cost if that happened.

She could stay, and live in Sweden for the rest of her life, until Peter and Elsa got bored or until Carl stopped keeping an eye on them. How long would that take?

She could stay, follow the Malfoy's back to Britain, and wait for Peter and Elsa to pay a visit. Not to mention everything that this option meant – announcing to the world that she was back, but gone. How was she going to explain it to her friends? Was she even capable of living amongst people that always smelled like her favourite kind of food at her hungriest hour? Did Draco even want her to come with him?

Of course, the last option was the thing she wanted to the most and least on the same time.

When she noticed the sun rising, she sneaked out of bed and settled in the windowsill like so many times before. Even if the sunlight always had been such a natural thing for her to be in these past twenty years, she still hadn't gotten reused to not flinch in it. To not run from it, not be crucially aware of where it reached and didn't, and she guessed she perhaps never would stand as relaxed in the sun as she once had.

She glanced back at Draco in the bed, how the comforter was twirled around his hips and leaved his back bare. She thought of how his family's vampyric genes showed in him; his pale skin colour that almost matched hers, the white hair and his full moon eyes.

When Draco woke up a few hours later, the sun had settled quite the far bit up in the sky and Hermione was still sitting in the window, fingering the green ring absently.

"Mornin'" she heard him mumble after he had stirred a bit in the bed, and she smiled in answer. "Why are you sitting naked in the window?" he continued after a while without actually lifting his head from the pillow.

"I'm not naked", she answered and Draco suddenly looked up at her with a raised eyebrow.

"You're quite naked, though", he continued and flopped his head back down. "Who are you trying to flash?"

The question made her pull her arms up and cover her chest properly. She was only wearing panties, sure, but she knew the only ones who'd been capable of sneaking a look at her was an animal or two that had passed by outside, and what do they care about her nakedness?

She rose from the windowsill to head for the bathroom, but when she passed the bed, Draco reached out and grabbed her around the wrist. She froze and waited for Draco to say whatever he had at heart, but he didn't look up from the pillow.

"What?" she asked after a while, and the question made Draco's hand let her wrist go, in the same time as he turned his face around so that she could see him.

"I dreamed that you left", he said, and suddenly met her eyes with a look that was questioning, daring, accusing.

"I almost did", she answered and it felt like they stayed like that for several minutes, staring at each other, until Draco nodded and resettled into the pillow.

"Wake me when it's time for breakfast", he mumbled and Hermione released a breath she didn't knew she had been holding. The feeling in her stomach made her ditch the bathroom and sneak under the comforter instead, resting her mouth against Draco's shoulder, and his arm came sneaking up her back, pulling her closer as if he wanted to feel every part of her touching his.


	46. Chapter 46

She fell asleep and dreamt of her parents. In the beginning it felt like a memory; she was six years old and her mother had baked her a strawberry cake for her birthday. They two of them were posing in front of her father holding a camera, but when the flash went off and she was temporary blinded, they were gone.

The dream changed and became darker, sadder and uncomfortable. She stood next to Harry and Ron in the Diagon Alley; they were trying to get through a crowded mass of people yelling things at them and when a camera flashed, they were gone too.

The dream continued until it felt like everyone she'd ever met had disappeared by the flash on a camera, and she started to launch at the camera whenever it reappeared, but she never made it in time.

In the end she found herself next to a too familiar blonde family, and the camera was there again. She ran towards it, and when she for once seemed to actually get anywhere, the ground disappeared from under her feet and she fell the moment the flash went off.

She woke with a sudden twitch and gasped loudly for air; she felt it pour down her throat and fill up her lungs and her heart was beating faster than it should. It took her a couple of seconds to realise where she was.

"Hermione?" she heard and the rest of the room suddenly invaded her mind. She turned around and managed to see a relaxed, newly awake and half-naked Draco beside her. When he met her eyes, things seemed to start to happen in slow motion. She could se his pupils dilate and hear his breath hitch, before he flinched and practically fell out of bed. She could hear his heartbeat speed up and she could tell that his behaviour was instinctual. She had a hunch why and it made a cold hard stone of guilt settle in her stomach.

They stared at each other for a minute, Draco a few meters away on the floor, eyes still big in shock. His heart rate slowly went back to normal.

"Sorry", she said after a while.

She could see Draco taking a deep breath before nodding slowly.

"I'm fine. You just…", but he didn't seem to find the right words for whatever he was trying to say. She knew too well what had happened already.

Draco got to his feet, cleared his throat and headed for the bathroom. She looked after him, and even though she knew it was more than time to get up (she was surprised Cranky hadn't come to wake them up yet), she didn't like when he disappeared out of her sight with his back to her.

She forced herself to relax back into the bed and sighed.

It felt like Draco was in the bathroom for hours, but in the aftermath it had probably only been for a few minutes. A thousand thoughts managed to find their way through Hermione's mind; the dream, the fact that she'd probably given Draco the most awful wake up call of his life, then Peter, then Estelle, then _how the hell did all this even happen_, and only seconds before Draco re-emerged from the bathroom did she dare think of the most disturbing thought of them all; she was _hungry._

There was a feeling deep down in her stomach that she hadn't felt before, a deep, prominent tugging that yelled 'feed' and it made it harder for her to keep control of her senses. She'd never been happier she couldn't smell Draco, because all of a sudden she was painfully aware of the low noises of living his body made. Hell, she was even aware of her own heart beating, and she had never been more disturbed by it.

She contemplated for a second if she should just stay in the room and let Draco head for breakfast by himself, but in the end she decided not to. She probably only needed to think of something else, and how was she going to that if she stayed put in bed all day?

She sat up in bed when Draco approached her again and crooked her head when she recognized the expression on his face. It was too typical Draco to ignore.

"What?" she irked, and he chuckled and shook his head so that the scent of his hair went flying out in the room. She pinned her eyes on him, determined not to give up until he confessed whatever it was he was holding back. He seemed to hesitate for another moment, until he sat down in the bed in front of her and forced her down on her back. It was lucky his eyes were hypnotizing enough to drown out the sound of his blood circulating in his body.

"It's unfair how when you are scariest…" he said as his eyes seemed to calcute every little feature of her face. She could feel the hot air from his mouth mix with hers and for the first time since she drank the potion she really understood why breathing was such an excellent thing.

They kissed, and it didn't take long for Hermione to forget that Draco had said anything at all. Her senses were still a little heightened from earlier, and it made her skin tingle particularly much under Draco's fingers. She tangled her own in his hair and thanked the greater warlocks that she could at least smell _that._


	47. Chapter 47

The words had gotten stuck in his mouth because he had never said anything like that before and actually meant it. It felt ironic though, that she managed to look so absolutely _beautiful_ just moments after scaring the living hell out of him. The aftermath of her turning full out vampire-mode resulted in her eyes looking bigger, darker and more intense. Her lips looked more full and redder, as if her mouth still hadn't gotten used to that huge pair of teeth, and her cheeks flushed.

It was a look that was both a little scary and attractive as hell on the same time, but he found himself trusting her enough to make him able to put the scary part aside. Perhaps it was because of the way Hermione showed her trust for him so full-heartedly, letting him push her down and be the one of top when in theory she was supposed to be the dominant one.

It gave him chills just thinking about it.

When they reached the breakfast room they found both his parents and Carl waiting for them.

"You could have woken us up", he frowned when he noticed that they seemed to have almost finished their breakfast already. His mother conjured up an extra chair for Hermione, who sat down on it with just a small thanking nod. Draco took the empty seat beside her, too well aware of the tense atmosphere. He helped himself to some toast without looking away from the three elder. His mother was watching Hermione with a weird look on her face, and he didn't blame Hermione for shrinking under it. His father's gaze shifted from Carl to meeting Draco's, and then he sighed and pulled everyone's attention to him.

"We've decided to head home a little earlier", his father said with that small raise of his eyebrows that demanded no fighting. Draco waited. "Apart from what happened last night, I need to get back to work and Narcissa is getting bored. I'm sure you wish to head back as well, right Draco?"

When Draco didn't nod, Carl spoke up. "We've decided that this is for the best until things calm down around here. We don't want to risk anyone getting hurt."

Draco glanced at Hermione, who was watching Carl with a tense mouth, as if she was forcing herself not to say anything.  
>"We're heading back tomorrow", his mother said as she and Lucius stood up and left the table. Carl rose as well, walked around the table, leaned over Hermione's shoulder and said something. Only seconds after Carl had left the room, Hermione sprung up from her chair and ran for the door. She was two corriodors down when Draco caught up with her.<p>

"What are you doing?" he asked as he managed to get a hold of her arm. She stopped in her track and turned around, her eyes glowing as red as they had this morning, but with a hint of desperation added to the anger.

"I am sick and tired of running", she spat out, and for the first time since he'd arrived there this summer did she really look like she used to do. "I've done enough of that in my life already."

She stared at him for a few seconds, until he nodded and let his wand fall down in his hand. He could see that she felt uncertain of his reaction, as if she rather wanted him on a safe distance than next to her side, which she certainly knew were where she would actually need him the most.

"How do you know where he'll be?" he asked as she turned around and continued down the hallway.

"I have a hunch", she answered.

Her hunch lead them down to the secret tunnel under the lake. For once Draco was able to see what it really looked like. He had imagined it to be extremely natural, with dirt for walls and ceilings, but with the light of his wand he realised that there hung lamps in the ceilings and that they passed several doors concurring more questions than actually answering any.

Hermione suddenly stopped in her tracks and in the corner of the light their wands cast Draco could see Peter step out.

He smiled at them; his eyes reflecting white in the light and making him look more like an animal briefly seen in the woods than a human being.

"I knew you'd show up, Hermione", he said and then in less of a half of a second, the tunnel seemed to be full of people and Hermione's wand dropped to the floor. Before Draco even had the time to open his mouth, Peter's standing in front of him with Hermione in a tight neck grip so that she's positioned to hit any spells Draco would try to cast. Peter meets Draco's eyes as he drags his nose along Hermione's hairline. It makes Draco's blood feel like it's boiling, and Hermione's eyes suddenly snap from shut to watching something at him. Draco can't pinpoint what, because he's too aware of how Peter's teeth are not as far from Hermione's neck as he'd like.

"I am, after all, your creator."


	48. Chapter 48

_Things happen really quick in this chapter. If you think it's too fast; the next will be the scenario from Draco's POV._

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><p>It took a while before Hermione even recognized the words coming out of Peter's mouth. Once she had, however, it felt like her heart would break a little. She tried to get out of his grip, but Peter's arm only closed tighter around her. Her mind was stirring with thoughts but <em>Peter's my creator<em> slowly became the most prominent one. Then suddenly there was a flash of light and she was dragged to the left and she took the opportunity to fight herself loose. She pulled her hand out to where she saw her wand lying, light's still on, and it soon came flying right into the palm of her hand. She swung around and positioned the wand tightly under Peter's neck where he was busy screaming directions to his companions. The firm feeling of wood under his chin successfully shut him up, however, and he turned his gaze back to Hermione. For a few second all Hermione knew that she could blow off Peter's head with just a whisper, but when she opened her mouth to speak she accidently inhaled the scent of something she had never smelled before. It poured down her nose and lungs and filled her min within seconds, and she felt as if she was going high and dying on the same time. She was so preoccupied with the smell she didn't realise it affected Peter as well, and it was only when she was him move that she snapped her eyes back to him, then away to where the insanely delicious _smell_ was coming from, and realised it was Draco.

He was still standing firmly and with his wand raised towards the other one's down there, but the fabric on his left shoulder was ripped open and through it Hermione could see the too clearly marks of scratching teeth. She inhaled again, letting the smell of Draco's blood filling her up and wondering how the hell someone can smell so much of nothing when their blood smells better than anything she'd ever come across. She imagines in front of her what it'd feel like and _taste_ like, and…

"Hermione", Draco said and she met his eyes. What she saw makes her anger grow stronger than her hunger, and before she knows it she charges at Peter, her wand completely forgotten.

Her senses become heightened beyond recognition; she can feel the scent from every vampire around her, making her able to pinpoint their location without even looking. She can see the way their skin twists under her hands, the way it breaks and bleed with blood that doesn't interest her, the way their eyes scream anger and panic and _fear_. She can hear them screaming, can hear Draco mouthing curses no one should even now, hear Elsa crying out but Hermione can't tell if it because she'd hurt or because someone else is.

The only thing she tastes in her mouth is her own blood, partly from biting up her own lip and partly because someone ripped her chin up from her mouth.

She finally stops when she hear a pained sound from someone she hasn't touched. Elsa is in her hands, hurt but still conscious, and Hermione drops her and comes to her feet as fast as she can. She's shocked by the state of the tunnel, because there are bodies all over the floor and not a single one of them looks fine. The one who lies down the furthest away is the only one who interest her, and she can feel the panic stir in her stomach before she even gets down to her knees beside him.

She almost chokes on the smell of his blood, but she forces it away because she just _can't_ think of that for the moment. She reaches for her wand, which is on the floor again, and it comes flying to her hand. She bites her lip and forces the tears back out of her eyes when she examines him, and sighs a bit in relief when she realises it's not that bad.

"_Vulnera Sanentur_" she whispers in repeat, points her wand over his wounds and almost laughs with relief when she sees the two open gashes slowly close together. She flicks her wand over the wounds again to clear of some of the blood before it becomes too much and she's suddenly thankful over the fact that he can't be turned.

She sits with her back to the rest of the scenario while she waits for Draco to wake up because she doesn't want to face it. She can tell that only two of them are still alive, and it scares her.

When Draco shows signs of waking up, she comes to her senses and sends her Patronus to Lucius.


	49. Chapter 49

_Fighting is not what I'm best writing about, so you'll have to forgive me. _

_The spells mentioned are Incendio (causes fire), Depulso (nonverbal, the opposite of Accio), Mimble Wimble (tongue-tying curse) and Confringo (causes things to explode) and Fiendfyre._

* * *

><p>Everything seemed to freeze the moment Peter stated to be Hermione's creator. He could see Hermione stiffen in his grip and he suddenly found himself wondering if there was any weird vampire bond that connected a vampire to their creator in a way that certainly would not be very good at the moment.<p>

He was too aware of how outnumbered he was. There were a total of 6 vampires in the tunnel, Peter included, and even if he had his magic as an advantage, it wasn't going to serve him any good when they were too fast and too many. Draco would have cursed under his breath if he wasn't to busy observing them.

Even though he was only 22 years old, he was after all far from a stranger to fights and tactics. He knew that his strength laid in planning and then acting, and so he took the time he was given to do just that. Peter was the best and worst choice to start striking at. Hermione was in the way, for the time being, but the first shot was never aime to strike. It was to cause a reaction, and sometimes that was all you needed.

"_Incendio"_, he said and a strike of fire darted out of his wand. He could see their eyes widen in surprise, as if they hadn't suspected him to actually do anything as long as Hermione was in the position she was in. Peter flinched hard and moved to the left, and in the same movement he could see Hermione pull away from his grip. Draco raised his wand in preparation for the other vampire's attacks, but found in surprise that they didn't move. He looked back at Hermione and found her with Peter pinned by the end of her wand. The moment he did, however, Elsa disappeared out of his peripheral sight and he suddenly felt her hands grip his hair and her teeth sink down his shoulder. He hissed at the pain it caused.

Before he even aired _depulso_ she went flying off his shoulder and he turned around with his wand straight up her face.

"_Mimble wimble_", he spat, because even if it was quite the simple curse it was the only one he could think of that successfully would keep her mouth shut.

Things froze again. When he darted his gaze back to Hermione, he found her still with her wand under Peter's chin, but her head tilted and her eyes big and red and seemingly seeing nothing else but the wound on his shoulder. It freaked him out.

"Hermione", he tried to say in a way that would tell her _not now_. Anytime but now.

Her gaze snapped up to him and seemed to suddenly see what was in front of her. Then she turned around and within a matter of seconds broke Peter's neck.

Things happened quickly after that. The remaining vampires charged at them as if there was no tomorrow and Draco realised for the first time that he was happy he'd learn all kinds of curses people should never know, because without them he certainly would never been able to take down a _freaking vampire_. The hit he'd gotten on of them in the hallway outside Hermione's room had told him a little about what kind of destruction needed to lie behind the curses to actually have any effect on the vampire's at all.

But it was hard. Even though three of them had gone for Hermione he had two at him at once, and he'd be lucky to manage one at the most. They were faster than his curses moved and a curse like _Confringo_ only left them with a big gaping wound; big enough to have killed any living creature but obviously not big enough to do more than stagger a vampire for a few minutes and make them even angrier. He got bit again, not as deep as the first one, but instead of a neat deep cut the teeth dragged along his skin and cut up long gashes along his ribcage. He managed to take one of them down using a curse he'd hoped never to use again, but he could feel the blood loss affect him greatly the moment the man fell down to his knees with his upper body covered in flames.

The other one had his mouth locked and stared at Draco before deciding to help whoever was fighting Hermione at the moment.

Draco didn't watch. He forced himself to focus on the flames on the now lying man's body, too well aware what could happen if he let them wander further.

It didn't take many seconds for him to pass out.


	50. Chapter 50

The first thing he saw when he woke up was his mother. She was sitting next to him, smiling in what he knew was relief and patted some strings of hair out his face.

The second thing he saw was Hermione. She was sitting on his other side and looked like everything his mother didn't. Where his mother was neat, clean and smiling, Hermione was dirty, covered in blood and crying.

"How are you feeling, dear?" his mother asked.

"Like I've been flying in the woods in a storm", he answered and brought his arm up to scratch his face, only to notice that is arm was in a splint. He frowned.

"Hermione healed your wounds fine, and your arm'll be back to normal in no time", Narcissa continued and glanced at Hermione who manage to look both self-conscious and guilty on the same time. Then his mother rose up and Draco noticed that his father was standing by the man he'd set on fire and that the flames were slowly going out. Carl was crouching over what he assumed was Elsa and handed her something to drink.

Draco leaned back on the floor and sighed.

"Well, that was stupid", he said and glanced at Hermione. She didn't look at him, but instead her gaze was stuck somewhere on the floor beside him.

"I'm sorry. I should have known better than to drag you with me."

He frowned.

"As I remember it I came with you quite solely on my own accord."

She glared at him and he chuckled. She seemed to relax a bit and tried to flatten out the fabric on his ruined shirt.

"I shouldn't have picked a fight, then. It isn't like me", she continued. They fell silent and he could see her bite her lip, as if there was something else nagging on her mind. He wasn't going to force it out of her, though.

Narcissa approached them again and Draco sat up. His shoulder and rib was aching where he had been bitten, but it wasn't much worse than that. His mother, however, sat down next to Hermione and started cleaning her wounds. Hermione looked immensely awkward but let her.

"You know what I said about it all backfiring if held back for too long, Draco?" his mother said without looking down at him. He nodded.

"Turned out too be just what you needed. I don't know how you'd ever survive going at six vampire's as once who are all older if not for that."

He couldn't tell if she was talking to him or to Hermione anymore, but it didn't matter.

"He said he was her creator", he answered after a while. He could see Carl look up from the other end of the room.

"Peter?" his mother asked as she cleared Hermione's face from blood with another flick of her wand.

"It was really reckless of you to use Fiendfyre, Draco. It could have gone really bad", his mother continued after a while and the familiar feeling of being reprimanded it brought was welcoming.

"Yeah, well, I didn't have much of an option. They never died."

His mother nodded.

"We'd like to think that we're the most powerful creatures in the world", she said, "but if the vampire's ever decided they wanted more than what they have, the world would be doomed. They're still magical creatures, they live forever and spells doesn't take very good on them. They only die for real when ripped to pieces… or burned to ashes."

Draco looked over again to where is father was handling the fire.

"You better get used to the attention, Miss Granger, because neither vampire nor wizards will forget you very fast. Perhaps not for centuries."

Then she turned to him. "Since things are not going to escalate in the future anymore, we're staying a couple of days extra. I don't know if Carl told you, but Miss Granger is welcome to come with us if she'd like. If you'd like."


	51. Chapter 51

_OKAY! Answers. You're getting them._

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><p>It turned out Magnus and Elsa were the only one's who survived, and they were both put in cells in the basement (of which original use Hermione didn't really didn't want to know). Magnus had known little of Peter's motives, but had joined after he'd seen Hermione walk around in the sun like it didn't bother her to death. Magnus, who although was the second oldest vampire after Carl in the house, had only been 18 years old when he died and still had the memories of the summer in his heart. He was born into a farmer's family 1785 with five siblings, of which he was the youngest.<p>

Hermione was relieved he survived.

They spent the afternoon questioning Elsa, and somehow Hermione found herself happy the woman had survived as well, because if not she had never gotten the answers she'd looked for.

The woman, however devastated that her mate was dead, eventually told them the story.

"Peter used to be a wizard, before he got turned. His mother was a muggle, but his father had been an exceptional wizard, he told me, and taught Peter everything he knew about mythical and magical creatures. They travelled Scandinavia researching them, and I believe it was in Finland that he met vampires for the first time. But his father accidently upset the family that were living there, because he still thought wizards were superior to them and you know how sensitive some… of us are about that. Anyway, Peter got turned and his father died.

Peter didn't stay long with his creators in Finland. He went back to see his mom, but it had been a few years and she shot him. He survived, but then accidently killed her and three other people when the little muggle town she lived in tried to haunt him down. After that he was never really fond of the muggles, but still longed and ached for the wizarding world and everything he'd used to be able to do. It's insanely… tough, to lose your magic. It's such an insanely big part of you and then for it to just disappear, forever...

He came to stay here when he heard of a sacred place where we were left alone, but you know, Carl, that he always goes travelling all the time. He was so restless. And once he learned about Estelle it didn't take long for him to find her notebooks in the laboratories. He was… obsessed with her. He shouldn't ever had gotten hold of those notebooks, but he did, and… then he found out about Eldric the Mad and the whole thing just went… crazy. He wanted to make himself another Estelle, which was just _insane_, because that still wouldn't give him his own magic back.

But he didn't listen to me. He was certain that if he managed to create a vampire with magic abilities they'd somehow be able to figure out how to help him too. There was still a lot of questions without answers about Estelle that he thought would just magically reveal themselves.

He tried several times to turn people, following the notes from Eldric he'd found about the creation of Estelle, but never succeeded. It was complicated, because it required the help of a witch or wizard who would in the end of the ceremony die, just like Eldric had. For every failure Peter experienced he was forced to find another one willing to do something so crazy, even if he never told them how it'd end. He learned that the candidate for being turned needed to be something, someone extraordinary, as well. They needed to be a witch or wizard, naturally. They needed to be quite the powerful one as well, and not so old their age infected on their condition. He was so exited in the end, when he though he'd found the perfect candidates. He'd found a wizard who claimed to be an actual descendant to Eldric the Mad, but I don't know if that had actually been true.

And then he found you. We don't get hold of very much wizarding news out here, but even we know about the War and the Golden Trio who won it. Peter was out on a trip when he heard rumours about you travelling around, and close. So he went to get you and was so certain it would work.

It did.

He bit you, the wizard died and you fed on him. But he hadn't counted on you lashing out like you did when it was over. Even if you were just turned, Peter knew what he'd created and fled, and waited for you to calm down. Get used to it. He sent a friend to 'find' you, and you were brought here.

He watched you from a distance, because he was too smart for his own good. He'd read about you, and knew that in time, you'd find the answers to his questions.

In the beginning he didn't like the Malfoy's interference, but when it turned out to only made things happen even faster he was practically overflowing with glee. He knew you'd found the notebooks he'd left in the laboratories, and you should have seen how his eyes glistened when he saw you walk in the sun for the first time. But that's also when he started to loose his patience. We could all tell your heart was beating again and Peter was sure that was the way to make his magic come back too. And I couldn't do anything but agree, because it made sense. The magic thrives of our living bodies, of the air we breath and blood we beat. That's why our magic dies when we die, why it dies when we are turned. The little amount of magic you were able to do in the beginning was thanks to the fact that you were still so newly turned and the blood of that wizard still pulsed in you.

I was his mate, but it was still you he longed for every morning when we went to bed. Everyone of us did with every step you took in the sun."


	52. Chapter 52

When Elsa finally silenced Hermione didn't know what to think. She felt relief over knowing what had happened. She felt anger for Peter being able to do anything like that at all. She felt guilt for putting Draco in danger, and confusion of what to do next. Most of all she felt fear, of the way she'd lost control so completely in the tunnel. It hadn't been the first people she'd killed, but it wasn't a list she was particularly happy to add names too.

She heard Carl sigh and turned her gaze towards him. She didn't approve of the way he'd handled things around the mansion, but she suddenly saw how tired he looked and felt a sting of regret thinking about how cold she'd been to him. He was eyeing Elsa with a look that told Hermione that Elsa wasn't the only one grieving her mate.

When Elsa had been taken back down to the cellar, Hermione felt incredibly tired. She was standing next to Draco, who was talking with his parents about the upcoming days and the departure home, so she allowed her eyes to drop and lean her forehead on his (not wounded) shoulder.

She woke up when she felt a familiar tug in her stomach and appeared back in Draco's bedroom.

"You shouldn't apparate people who are asleep", she tried to scold, barely able to keep her eyes open. She could her Draco laugh.

"Are you kidding? It's the easiest way to apparate in tandem. That way the don't start interfering."

She was asleep before she even had all limbs on the bed.

When she woke up, the sunlight was finding its way through the curtains and Hermione felt more well rested than she'd felt in years. Draco was asleep in front of her, lying on his undamaged shoulder. The other shoulder was still patched up, but there was not any sign of any blood bleeding through anymore.

"It's fine", Draco suddenly said and petrified Hermione with one hand in the air. She hadn't been aware he'd been awake. Draco started chuckling in his pillow and made Hermione frown.

"What?"

Draco scooted closer to her and patted at her still raised hand to make it fall down. It wasn't until they were practically face-to-face until he answered.

"You just looked like a deer caught in wandlight", he said and calmed down again, showing no obvious signs of actually being awake.

"You mean headlights?"

It was Draco's time to frown.

"What?"

"The line is 'you look like a deer caught in the headlights'."

He peered an eye open at her, one of his eyebrows questioning her sanity. Then he sighed.

"Right. Go back to sleep."

But even if Draco seemed to go back to sleep, she didn't. A while later there was a silent knock on the door, and she looked up. The fat doors didn't stop her from knowing who it was.

"Come in", she sighed as she slowly sat up in bed, careful not to wake Draco up. Carl stepped in on silent toes and gave her a thankful smile.

"Can I have a word with you?" he asked even though her letting him already answered that question. She nodded anyway and motioned for him to sit down in Draco's armchair, reaching for her wand and nonverbally conjuring up another chair for herself. It wasn't as good-looking as Narcissa's had been the previous morning, but bigger and more comfortable. She sat down in front of Carl and waited for him to speak. He seemed to have trouble deciding where to start.

"I've come to ask you whether you have decided on staying or not", he finally said and Hermione glanced to the bed where Draco was still sleeping.

"I'm not", she answered and Carl nodded in understanding.

"I'm… tired of running. I can't just hide out here until everyone I know has died. That… isn't fair to anybody. I have to set up a life that I can live."

"Even though it means watching the one's you love die?" Carl asked and made Hermione's stomach knot.

"Yes. Even though I might have an eternity left to live, I'm only 23. I should live like it. I shouldn't waste the years I've got."

Carl gave her another if his smiles that reminded her too much of Dumbledore.

"In that case, you should know that the diet you've been staying on isn't going to do. What happened last night was a result of that."

Hermione swallowed hard.

"I don't want to risk eating the people I like. Last night, I almost… Draco's blood was… _so_ good smelling", she said in a tense whisper, because only thinking about it made everything inside her twist.

Carl just nodded.

"Anybody's blood would at that point, but Draco's did especially because of the way you feel about him."

She frowned and Carl continued.

"When a vampire falls in love, it's instinctual to want to turn the subject of matter so that we can spend our eternity with them. The greatest loss we can ever experience is our mate dying and so our mind does anything it can to prevent it. Of course, turning them doesn't always help. In your case, turning isn't even an option."

"But Draco's not…"

"It doesn't matter what Mr Malfoy is or isn't", Carl interrupted her. "What matter is what you feel about him."


	53. Chapter 53

_This is_ (probably)_ the penultimate chapter!_

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><p>"Every ideal situation is unique for every vampire. Some need the human blood not to snap, for some animal blood is enough. Most of us will need human once in a while, because even if animal blood is still blood it's like eating a carrot when you can have a steak. It depends a lot on the eating habits of your human life as well. Magnus, for example, who was born into a poor family and practically grew up on wheat porridge doesn't need human blood very much. You probably will. But even if you do, a portion every other month is enough to keep us satisfied. The more we drink, the stronger we get, but having too much can be just as bad as having to little. It's called being bloodblind and results in a vampire drinking anything it stumbles on, like an addiction. When bloodblindness goes to far, the vampire can even empty a fellow on all it's second hand-blood, which is fatal for both.<p>

Fresh and warm blood satiates us about twice as much than cold, but that doesn't mean cold blood is useless. Today we can survive on blood bags, and even if one can argue that they're better needed to save people in the hospital, it prevents us from putting people there.

Back when Estelle was alive it was usual for us to have a few human servants that served as living blood bags. The morals of today has stopped us from having them, even if they were handy. Sometimes a vampire can get in a similar arrangement with a human in their vicinity, but it's rare, and I strongly don't recommend it with Draco.

If only living on animal blood, the bigger the animal the better satiation. Magical animals even more, but there interferes the morals of today once again. And it also depends on which type of animals. Unicorns are almost as good as humans while gnomes are about the opposite."

Carl silenced.

"How come you didn't tell me all this when I arrived here?" Hermione responded, a bit irked by the fact that all this was information that would have been handy to hear about half a year ago.

"I really should have. But you were in a shocked state, to begin with, and I decided to let you get used to being here first. Then you just... put your daggers out. I should have ignored them, but you reminded me too much of Estelle to be able to. I took them too personally. And then when the Malfoy's showed up and you started talking with Draco, I thought that perhaps that's what you needed to loosen up a little, to eventually let me talk to you. I decided to wait a bit more. Which, obviously, wasn't my wisest decision. Do you want some tea?"

Hermione was caught of guard by the question and simply gave a small nod in response, not actually certain that she did want tea. Cranky showed up just a few moments later, perfectly balancing a brick with three cups of tea on it. The elf was glaring at Carl, who just smiled. The elf turned to Hermione.

"Cranky isn't coming with tea because housemaster asked, Cranky came with tea because young master is awake", it protested as it handed them their cups.

"Thank you", Hermione smiled as she felt the heat of it warm up her cold fingers. She glanced at the bed when Cranky placed the last cup on the bedside table. She met Draco's eyes and he rolled them at her.

"_Thank you_, Cranky, for coming with life changing tea in the morning", he said ironically with half his face still buried in the pillow. The elf smiled largely before disappearing.

A few minutes of silence followed with Hermione and Carl smutting their tea and with Draco reclosing his eyes.

"I suggest you take your time re-entering the wizarding world", Carl continued after a while. "Start with seeing people you know, in private, and get used to being around them. It wont be as hard once you start with a fitting diet, but don't go rushing through the centre of London until you're sure you can handle it. For many vampires it takes years to do, because the noise of that much blood can be over-whelming. Break it in slowly, step by step. Try not to be in close contact with small children in the beginning either, because they are unpredictable and being caught of guard can result in very, very bad things. If you… ever get children on your own, it wont be as hard, because there will not be a single fibre of you who want to turn your children. That's the big difference between love between partners and love through motherhood. Estelle has probably mentioned it in one of the notebooks you have."

When Carl had finished his cup of tea he seemed to be finished talking. He bid goodbye and left just as quietly as he'd arrived, and Hermione crawled down next to Draco again.

"You haven't even touched your tea", she said a bit disapprovingly, but Draco just shook his shoulders.

"Are you coming back with us?" he asked instead. Hermione allowed her heart to slow down enough to match Draco's. It was immensely relaxing.

"Yes", she sighed contently at last. Draco leaned closer and pressed his lips against hers, and Hermione inhaled as his hand curled against her hip. It was a light and still kiss that went no further than that and all she could smell was his hair.


	54. Chapter 54

They had two days before they were supposed to head back to Britain. They spent them extremely lazy, not getting up from bed until the sun was practically at its highest and had lunch for breakfast. In the afternoon they searched the tunnel together with Carl and Draco's parents and found a room which Peter seemed to have used as a hidden storage room. In there they found the rest of Estelle's notebooks, a few of Eldric the Mad and several of Peter's own. Even though Draco was tempted to read them they gave all notebooks back to Carl, except for the one of Estelle's he had found hidden.

"You have better use of it than me", Carl had said when he'd refused to take it and Hermione had barely been able to hide her relief.

They spent the evening in Hermione's room and packed her stuff together, and Draco was immensely impressed by her never-filling handbag. Sure, Cranky was the one to take care of his own luggage, but he imagined that if he ever needed to carry it around himself, an endless bag would be the most convenient way to do it.

He was glad she was coming with them. The more they prepared for their departure, the more Draco realised how much. It made him feel a bit silly, because he was glad that _Hermione Granger_ was coming back with him, but the feeling disappeared as soon as she shot him a smile or retorted his jokes with an equal amount of wit and sarcasm, which he still wasn't used to.

He also wasn't used to waking up next to a mass of brown curls (actual curls) or sitting down at a breakfast table with four chairs, but he felt like he should. In the future, at least, because the thought of ever only being used to having three chairs around the same breakfast table until they became two, or one, was seriously depressing.

The last night in Sweden they went to bed quite early, even though neither of them felt particularly sleepy. They had spent the day cleaning up the laboratories and choosing some books from the library that Hermione wished to borrow and were out of things left to do.

"I'm scared", Hermione whispered when they were lying down. Draco turned around to meet her eyes, which gleamed a little lighter in the darkness.

"Why?" he asked and rolled around so that they were lying face to face. He closed his eyes and felt his body slowly relax. It took Hermione a while to answer.

"I don't know. I'm scared of… what they'll say."

He could think of a few people that _they_ could be.

"You don't have to care, you know. Those who really… love you, will still love you. They are the only one's that matter.

He heard her smile.  
>"Frankly, I'm a bit scared of going back to the Malfoy Manor too", she continued after a while and Draco opened his eyes.<p>

He had forgotten about that and now that she said it he felt sort of like an idiot for not remembering it. Even a normal person would probably have problems visiting the place where they had been… tortured. He barely remembered how her screams had echoed through half the house but only because he had done his best to repress the most of what had happened around that time. Not remembering didn't take away the fact that it had happened, though.

"It'll be fine", he said, even if he wasn't sure it was actually going to be, "we barely use that part of the house anymore."

The following morning Hermione's nervousness could be seen from miles away. She got dressed faster and quieter than usual and when Draco caught her in a hug (because he's not an idiot, he can see when someone really needs one) she buried her face in his neck and hugged back almost too hard.

"You sure this is what you want?" he enquired, and she nodded into his shoulder. When she stepped back her expression was one of determination.

"Let's get breakfast", she smiled.

An hour after breakfast they were standing by the entrance doors. Carl was there bidding them goodbye, as was Magnus, who looked more sorry than Draco had ever seen anybody be. Hermione gave Magnus a long hug while she only shook Carl's hand, however actually quite friendly. The whole lot of them stepped out on the courtyard because the sky was covered in thick, grey clouds. Sigge came up to them and said his own kind of goodbyes, and when his mother reached for them, they all grabbed her around an arm. She had Lucius on her right side and Draco and Hermione on her left when she nodded and apparated.

The crack that announced their reappearance was a bit louder than Narcissa's usual quiet one, but they were after all one more than usual. When Draco opened his eyes, light raindrops were falling from above and the big gate that crowned the Malfoy grounds stood big and black in front of them.

His father stepped up and the gate opened, and his mother laid a hand over Hermione's, where it was still holding her wrist.

"It'll be fine", she said, and Hermione looked back at them. She smiled weakly.

"That's what Draco said."

His mother chuckled and followed Lucius through the gate.

"My mother likes you", Draco stated a bit surprised after a while, and the thought stirred something unusually nice in his stomach.

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><p><em>AUTHORS NOTEEEE: I know a lot of you have asked and wondered how it'll be when Hermione gets back. If you're thinking "NOO I should not end the story here", I'm telling you; I am not.<em>

_This story Summer in Sweden was always going to be about Hermione and Draco's summer in Sweden. It was always going to end with them leaving. However, I am planning a sequel (or more like a part 2) which will, frankly, be a bit different than this one and concern all the things Hermione has to face now that she's back. It'll be more about relationships and friendships and a lot more canon carachters will be in it (like Harry, Ron and Ginny). It will also focus more on Hermione's and Draco's relationship and if they're supposed to last. ALSO HER PARENTS?_

_To answer some questions, the vampire part is inspired by the movie Interview by the Vampire and Vampire Diaries._

_And finally, seriously, thank you everyone who has read this and followed this and reviewed and favoured this story. Thank you for still doing it._

_**THE FIRST CHAPTERS OF THE SEQUEL ARE NOW UP!**  
><em>


	55. Sequel Sneak Peek

**_The first chapters of the sequel is up! This is a sneak peek of the first chapter (because FFN doesn't allow Author Note's only in a chapter)._**

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><p>Entering the Malfoy Manor turned out to be not as bad as Hermione had expected it. The path leading up to the doors from the gates was covered in grovel and reminded her of the grovel path that had been at her grandmothers house. Besides it the grass was green and the creepy peacocks she'd caught a glimpse of last time were nowhere to be seen. The inside of the mansion was different, too. The high windows weren't covered in dark curtains and the overall darkness that she had remembered about the place was somehow almost completely gone.<p>

"I'll show you to your room", Draco said behind her and she stopped in her tracks.

"My room?" she asked, because she hadn't thought of her coming with them would involve anything like her actually staying with them sort of permanently. The very least in an own room.

Draco shook his shoulders.

"You don't have to use it if you don't want to. It's mostly because of tradition", he answered and she nodded in understanding. She and Draco wasn't in any way officially in a relationship, so offering her a room would be the custom thing to do. Draco showed her too it, lying a few doors down in the same corridor as his.

She opened the door reluctantly and hitched her breath when she stepped inside. Then she laughed.

"This is the most unMalfoy-ee room I have ever seen", she said and turned back to look at Draco, who grimaced a little bit.

"I totally agree with you", he answered as he peered around in it too. It had big windows at the end of it, and was filled with big furniture going in dark brown and white colour tones.

"Show me yours", Hermione stated after examining her room, and Draco's eyebrows arched at her.

"Why?" he replied, the entertainment not really hidden.

"It's good manners to show guests around, you know. I should really tell your mom-…", she started, but was interrupted with a laughing "fine" and she followed Draco back out into the corridor.


End file.
